


There's No How-To Manual

by i_am_trash_15



Series: Getting better (or at least trying) [2]
Category: Lunch Club, SMPLive, Video Blogging RPF, mcyt
Genre: Broken Bones, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lunch Club - Freeform, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Racist lady, Schlatt Angst, Schlatt is aquaphobic, Short Schlatt, a block equals one meter, but its more like they all just live together like in the LA videos, for like five seconds - Freeform, i call the place SMPLive, minecraft mechanics and SMPLive mixed with the lunch club in LA videos, no one likes her, schlangst, schlatt cant swim, schlatt needs a hug, they all give him a hug, theyre all a litte ooc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28484310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_trash_15/pseuds/i_am_trash_15
Summary: They say making friends is easy. For Schlatt, fresh out into the real world, it's not. He wants it to be, but it isn't. Maybe a few people can give him a hand.
Relationships: its all platonic - Relationship, just friendships here
Series: Getting better (or at least trying) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076531
Comments: 117
Kudos: 218





	1. movin' out, movin' in

Schlatt arrived in the new place, whatever confidence he had now gone. He looked around, and it was really strange to see all the buildings outside. He hadn’t really gone outside a lot while at the children’s home, which was really more like a detention center. He’d taken to not-so-affectionately calling it ‘juvie hall’ in his last year or so there, and just never stopped calling it that. 

Someone noticed him, and called his name.

“Schlatt, hey, man. I’m Carson, you got in touch with me about moving here,” Carson, apparently, stuck his hand out. Schlatt shook it. “Welcome to SMPLive. Here, lemme show you around.” 

They began walking around, Carson showing Schlatt around, pointing out buildings, naming people whose names Schlatt won’t remember in five minutes anyway. Eventually, he led Schlatt to a series of buildings, labeled ‘apartments’.

“It isn’t much, but here’s some temporary living for you. I’ll let you settle in.” Carson gave him a smile, before giving him a key, supposedly to one of the rooms, and leaving him. Through that whole exchange, Schlatt had barely said a thing, and he had not been paying nearly enough attention to know where many buildings were. He gripped his backpack of belongings and looked at the key. It said the room number of his new living space. He started off towards it, finding the room after a bit of searching. He unlocked the door, and stepped inside. It was very plain, with no furniture, and only basic amenities, but he smiled anyway. It was perfect. He shrugged off his backpack and sat down on the floor, looking through it. There were a few pictures of his old family. He and his mother and his father, all sitting on a couch. He had crossed out his father’s face a long time ago. There was one of his Uncle flying a kite with him. He was so young. It was almost kind of funny.

He set aside the photos. He’d hang them on the wall later. He dug through the backpack, pulling out the clothes he took with him. A few turtlenecks, a jacket, some pants, and-

Where was it? He could’ve sworn he asked for it back. He left his blue sweater at the juvie hall. The one thing he had been able to hang onto through his childhood, through the labs. It had been taken from him at one point while he was in juvie hall, the caretakers saying that he needed to wear clothes that fit him. They didn’t understand. That was his uncle’s. It was the one thing he still had, and he left it at that damn place.

He took a deep breath. Panicking about it would help nothing. He set the clothes aside and continued through his bag, trying to think of anything but what he had forgotten. It was just a shirt. It was just a shirt. It would be okay.

There wasn’t much else in the bag. A few granola bars, a bottle of water, and a few gold coins. He didn’t think they had any monetary value here. He thought he saw people using diamonds, a more universal currency. He would have to try and get some of those. He currently had a grand total of absolutely nothing to his name.

He kicked off his shoes, his trusty steel-toe timberlands, and lay back on the floor. His hooves felt nice against the cool air. He only wore those things because he got all kinds of weird looks if he just walked around in just his hooves. He got poked fun at because he walked weird in the shoes, but maybe here he can just turn it into a joke or something.

He got up. He should explore the rest of his apartment. He peeked in the kitchen. There was a mini fridge, with nothing in it, and an oven, and a food storage. He would need to go shopping. He searched around for a piece of paper, and realized he would probably need that, too. He just made a mental note to get money and go shopping. He wouldn’t need much, but he would need stuff. And while he did not eat half the amount any normal person should, just out of habit, because his stomach was used to not eating for long periods of time, he would still need to eat. Maybe he could even get some meat, he thought giddily. He hadn’t had it in so long. The people at the Children’s home didn’t seem to like the idea that he liked meat, because he was part ram. Sure, he avoided eating mutton, but other meats were fair game. 

He toured the bathroom, which was primarily empty except for some soaps and a towel that the previous owner had evidently forgotten. Well, just as well for him. He went into the bedroom, which was just as barren as the main room, save for a chest of drawers. He got his backpack from the main room and placed his clothes on top of the dresser.

He went back into the main room and smiled around him. This place was great.

  
  
  


Carson was waiting for only about ten minutes before he saw the new person who had requested entry into SMPLive. He… did not look like Carson thought he would. The guy was young, but he had horns that curled about halfway around his sheep-like ears, and a fluffy tail. He was wearing nearly all black. A black turtleneck and black jeans. It was the middle of September, technically still summer. Wasn’t this guy warm? The only thing he wore that wasn’t black were his shoes, which were hard to ignore given the way that the boy walked around. Nevertheless, Carson had agreed to let him stay here, so he called the hybrid’s name, and made his way over to him.

“Schlatt! Hey, man. I’m Carson.” they shook hands, and Carson got a good look at his face. The kid looked young. He could be like, fifteen or sixteen, if Carson didn’t already know his age. He was eighteen, or at least he said he was. Schlatt also looked tired. Very tired. It looked like the guy didn’t ever get more than four hours of sleep per week. The eye bags this kid had could very well have been designer. He had a dark bruise under one eye, and Carson found himself hoping that this kid wouldn’t make him regret his decision to let him stay. Hopefully he didn’t pick any fights or anything.

Carson showed him around, casting all doubts to the back of his mind. Schlatt was very quiet so far, very respectful, so Carson put away his unrest for the time being. 

Eventually, they got to the local apartment complex. Carson gave him a key, and sent him on his way. He then went back to his place, the house that he and his friends shared.

“How’d it go?” Travis asked as he entered.

“It went well. I’ll introduce you guys tomorrow. Try not to scare him off.”

“Whaaaat? Us? Never. You must be thinking of someone else,” Ted chuckled. Everyone knew they could come on a little strong, especially to people who don’t know their sense of humor. Everyone chuckled along with Ted’s sarcastic joke.

“No, but seriously. He’s really shy, and quiet enough to give Noah a run for his money.” Noah appeared next to him, as Noah will do.

“That so?” he asked. Carson nodded.

The next day, Carson gathered his friends and walked over to the apartment building that he had left Schlatt at.

“Wait here, I’ll go get him.” Carson made his way over to the room that he had given Schlatt. He knocked.

“One second,” came the hybrid’s voice through the door. After a minute, the door unlocked and opened. Schlatt stood in the doorway, looking confused as to why Carson was there. “Can I help you?”

“Hey, Schlatt. I was wondering if you wanted to walk around town and meet my friends.” Schlatt took a deep breath, eyes flicking around as if trying to see if they were at the door with him.

“I was gonna go mining today. Get some resources… or something,” Schlatt said.

“Well, we can go with you. Help you get stuff.” Schlatt looked cornered. Too late, Carson realized that that was probably an excuse to not go with them. The horned boy sighed, and put on a smile. It looked fake.

“Okay, then. Sure. Lemme get ready real quick. Uh, make yourself at home,” Schlatt said with a weak chuckle. Carson followed him in. There was literally nothing in here. That must have been why Schlatt was laughing. There was an old backpack on the ground, with a few granola bars and face-down pictures sticking out of it, but otherwise, the room was barren. Schlatt ducked into the bedroom and closed the door. He came back out a moment later, ready to go. Carson caught a glimpse into the room. Nothing in there, either. He felt kinda bad for forgetting to give the guy a bed.

Schlatt dumped out his backpack, tossed a bottle of water and a granola bar in, and slung it across his shoulder.

“Ready?” Carson asked. Schlatt nodded, that fake smile still plastered to his face. “Okay, I’ll warn you, my friends can be a bit much.” the smile wavered. They got outside, and were immediately met with Carson’s friends. They all said hi at almost the exact same time, and Schlatt visibly flinched back.

“Hey, man! What’s your name? I’m Cooper,” the blonde said, sticking his hand out. Schlatt warily shook it, offering his name in a quiet voice.

  
  
  


Ted wasn’t sure what he was expecting when Carson came back out with the newest addition to the town, but it was not this. A Hybrid? Complete surprise. Not a bad one in any way, he was friends with several hybrids. Travis, Cooper, and Charlie, for starters. He hadn’t ever seen one that was part ram, though. Everyone took turns introducing themselves, and when it came time for Ted to do so, he stuck his hand out in greeting, announcing himself loudly.

“Hey, Schlagg, the name’s Ted.” The hybrid warily shook his hand.

“Its Schlatt, not Schlagg,” he corrected quietly. Ted pretended he didn’t hear him. All good friendships begin with some good hazing.

“What happened to your eye?” Schlatt looked down, as if trying to see it. What a dumbass.

“Oh. That. Yeah, I don’t honestly remember?” a lie. Ted told enough of them to be able to hear them when they were not well disguised. He raised an eyebrow. Was this guy a fighter? He didn’t want anyone starting fights with his friends. He would have to keep an eye on this one.

Carson clapped loudly, breaking the tension. “So! Today, we’ve gotta help Schlatt here mine a little bit. Says he needs some resources.” Figures. They guy just moved in, of course he would need stuff.

So off they went. Carson led them to a relatively untouched cave system, and they all went down. Schlatt had been silent this whole time. Uncomfortable, is he? Until Ted knew he could be trusted, he didn’t care if the guy was uncomfortable.

They mined for about an hour, putting all the fruits of their labor into a chest for Schlatt to take. At around lunch, they stopped. Schlatt thanked them all, and tucked the chest into his backpack.

“So, lunch?” Charlie asked cheerfully. Everyone nodded, except for Schlatt, who looked like he wanted to stay in the cave. Travis, always the trusting one, grabbed Schlatt’s arm and started pulling him along. Ted watched for any sign of aggression on Schlatt’s face, before deciding that he looked more scared or uncomfortable. Maybe he was overthinking Schlatt’s behavior. He was new, he was probably just as wary of all of them as Ted was of him. 

  
  
  


Once someone, Charlie, Schlatt thought it was, mentioned lunch, the dog hybrid, Travis, if he remembered correctly, had latched himself onto Schlatt and began tugging him along, back to the surface. Schlatt couldn’t help the flinch that came. He was not used to people touching him without pain following. He tried worming his way out, Travis just held tighter. He could feel his throat closing up, as he tried to subtly get away from him. He knew the other boy meant no harm, but the longer this continued, the less he might be able to control his tongue. He wanted to snap at the kid to quit it, stop touching him, but this was his first impression with these people.

Then a tall shadow passed over him. Ted put a hand on Travis’ shoulder, beckoning his attention. Travis let go, and Schlatt breathed in, not realizing he had stopped. However mistrustful Ted seemed of him, or how intimidating he was, Schlatt was incredibly grateful for him at that moment. Schlatt continued walking, hiding his shaking hands in his pockets. 

They got to the surface, and Carson announced that he had one more person joining them for lunch. Schlatt internally cringed. His social battery was getting low. He might have to sneak away from the group and try and find his way back to his apartment. 

The group arrived, and the new person was already waiting for them with the food. Pizza. Schlatt hadn’t had pizza in a long time. He smiled inwardly. They really knew the way to his heart.

“Schlatt? Is that you?” the person with the pizza said. Schlatt snapped back to reality, looking up. Lo and behold, a face he actually recognised.

“Wilbur? Holy shit, is that you?” he asked, incredulous. He couldn’t believe it. After another four years, here he was. Man, Wilbur had the weirdest timing. This was unbelievable. A grin split his face in two, and he forgot completely about the presence of the other people. He walked up to Wilbur, who met him with a hug. This one was not so suffocating, like it had been when Travis touched him. This was familiar.

“You survived! I legitimately thought you died, man!” Wilbur exclaimed. He pulled away. 

“Yeah, same. Like, the walls came down and I was just gone. I wasn’t sure if you were okay.”

“Well, I’m glad we both survived,” Wilbur chuckled. Someone behind them coughed. Oh right.

“Lets eat, shall we?” Carson asked.

  
  
  


Noah raised an eyebrow. Schlatt had been silent all morning, and then Wilbur shows up and apparently they’re long lost friends. Who was this guy? He and Ted had been very suspicious of Schlatt. He was quiet, sure, but something about him just seemed… off. Like he was hiding something.

Down in the caves, Travis had latched onto the ram boy, and he’d sort of frozen up. Like he was going to do something that any given person might regret. He looked like he was holding his breath. And Ted had walked up, tapped Travis on the shoulder, and pulled him away. Schlatt had visibly relaxed, and let out the breath he’d been holding. Ted pulled Travis over to Noah, and explained that maybe Schlatt didn’t like to be touched, and that they should maybe try to see what his deal was. Then they arrived at the pizza place, and upon seeing Wilbur, Schlatt had become a completely different person. The awkward, silent person was gone, in favor of an excited boy. There was some reference of near-death experiences that Noah could look into later, but apparently it was time to eat, as Cooper coughed awkwardly. Wilbur and Schlatt looked embarrassed. They had probably forgotten that they were with other people.

Everyone sat down at one of the tables, and dug into the pizza. Noah couldn’t help but notice that Schlatt waited until everyone had taken a piece of pizza to sort of look up at Wilbur, who nodded at him. He slowly took a piece, as if suspecting it was poisoned. 

After lunch, the Lunch Club, as the residents of SMPLive called their little group, all packed up the leftover pizza. There wasn’t that much left, so they peer pressured Schlatt into taking it, since he probably hadn’t gone to the store yet. The ram mumbled his thanks, and they let him leave. Or at least try to. Five minutes later, Carson looked down at his communicator and started laughing.

“He’s lost. That’s funny,” Carson laughed, looking up at them.

“Should we go find him?” Travis asked.

“Maybe only one of us, he looked a little overwhelmed,” Noah interjected. They all agreed, and somehow Noah was picked to find him. Maybe because he was okay with silence, and Schlatt could probably use a break from the constant conversation that any of the others would bring. Except Ted, who would probably threaten him, knowing Ted.

So that was how Noah found himself looking for Schlatt. He messaged him privately, since Carson had already given him a communicator.

Hugbox- _where are you?_

Jschlatt- _do i look like the sort of person to know where i am? If i knew that i wouldn’t be lost._

Well that was fair enough. Noah was glad to finally get some sort of reading of personality on the guy. Before, he had been kind of hard to read. And what did the J stand for?

Hugbox- _do you see any labeled buildings?_

Jschlatt- _uhhh there's this place called the theatre. I am at the theatre._

Hugbox- _okay i will be there in a minute._

Noah made his way over to the theatre, finding Schlatt there immediately. He was pretty easy to spot. The horns, for one, the long sleeved black clothing, for two. Schlatt waved awkwardly.

“So why are you called Hugbox in the communicator?” Schlatt asked.

“It’s my last name. What’s with the J?” Noah countered. Schlatt gave him a sly smirk.

“It’s my first name.”

“Is it really?”

“No. first letter,” Schlatt chuckled. Noah smirked. They arrived at Schlatt’s apartment, and Noah began to leave, but Schlatt stopped him. “Sorry, do you mind walking me to the store? I have to put this away first, but I’ve gotta get some stuff, and I have no idea where it is.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Thanks. You can wait inside, if you like.” Noah followed Schlatt into his apartment, where the man disappeared with his backpack, presumably to unload it. Noah looked around. It was very… empty. He’d say it louder if he didn’t know why. It was the guy’s second day here, and Carson had said he had just had the one backpack. Schlatt came back, placing the backpack on the floor.

“You ready?” Noah asked. Schlatt nodded, and Noah led the way to the store. They didn’t speak until they got there. “So what’s on your list?”

“Uhh, need some cereal and milk.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty low-maintenance. Plus, I’ve got that pizza you guys had me take.”

“Okay then.” Low maintenance. The guy looked like he got the 2,000 calories, sure, but he spread it out over the week. At the Lunch Club house, it felt like they went through a box of cereal a day, what with six boys in the house. It had used to be seven, but one of the guys moved out. He had been their camera guy. 

The Lunch Club were like the entertainers of SMPLive. They hadn’t meant to be, they just had some fun recording some of the stupid stuff they did, and other people liked watching it. They hadn’t made any new content since the camera guy moved out. Not because of any particular reason, but he had also been one of the main ‘idea guys’, and the others were running kinda dry with the idea flow.

Noah jumped out of his thoughts when Schlatt tapped him on the shoulder.

“What kinda cereal would you recommend?” Schlatt asked. “There are too many options…” he looked down at the floor.

“Hmm. What kind of cereal do you like?”

“I dunno. Raisin Bran is what the people who I lived with before always had, or some other wheat cereal. Do I just do that?”

“Do you want Raisin Bran?”

“I don’t know.” he said shyly. 

“Hmm. Well, my go-to is any random sugary cereal. Why don’t you get some healthy cereal and some sugary cereal? May I recommend this?” Noah gestured to a box of fruity pebbles. “Ted will tell you that the cocoa pebbles are better, but he’s wrong.” Schlatt picked up a box of fruity pebbles and a box of raisin bran and put them both in his basket, next to the milk that he had evidently gotten while Noah was zoned out.

“Anything else?”

“I need a spoon.”

“Quick tip, you can grab those at the deli and then you don’t have to pay for them.” Schlatt chuckled, and started making his way over to the deli and grabbing some plastic spoons. They went to go check out, and Noah made some small talk while Schlatt went through the self checkout.

“So what do you like to do?”

“Like, interests? Or things I can do? I’m pretty good with computer stuff. Took a few courses in computer science at the last place I lived at.”

“Really? We’ve been looking for someone with experience with computers to be our new camera guy. Want me to put in a good word for you with Carson?” Schlatt stopped.

“I mean, sure, but why me? You could have, like, anyone else, why would you trust me with your stuff?”

“Do we have any reason not to?”

“Well, no,” Schlatt looked confused, “but you have no reason to, either.”

“You hiding some sorta dark secret or something?”

“No,” the ram hybrid said, too quickly.

“Has it anything to do with the fact that you mention the place where you were before, but never actually say where you were before? Did you kill someone?”

“No.” He sounded more exasperated.

“How’d you get the black eye?” Noah was just trying to see what his breaking point was, at this point. Schlatt’s hand went to his face.

“It’s still there?”

“Yeah, dude. What even happened? Is it one of those ‘you should see the other guy’ things?”

“No… the other guy’s fine.”

“So what happened?”

“Listen, Noah. You seem nice and all, but I still barely know you. I don’t feel obligated to answer half of your questions yet. I’m not gonna tell you,” Schlatt said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He finished up paying for his cereal, and they walked out of the store.

  
  


Schlatt had a migraine. It started in the caves, when Travis latched onto him, it passed fleetingly when he saw Wilbur, and now it was back in full force as this guy would not stop asking him questions. He thought he was a cool guy until he started up personal conversations and would not stop. Schlatt was just ready to go back to his empty apartment and dissociate on the floor until the morning hours, when he could go mining, alone. But he still didn’t know the way home, so for now he put up with the constant questions.

“So your horns. Were you born with them?”

“No.” 

“What happens if someone pulls them?”

“Please don’t.” Schlatt internally groaned. He was seriously considering banging his head into a wall until he passed out. Finally, after what seemed like eons, they arrived at Schlatt’s apartment.

“Huh. I’m shocked. Most people break. You have impressed me,” Noah said. Schlatt stared at him blankly.

“What?” 

“The annoying questions. Most people break and snap at me. I’m actually pretty quiet, so this is just a test. Don’t worry.” Of course it was. They couldn’t even wait until he knew how to get home from the store until the hazing period started. Fan-fucking-tastic.

“Okay.”

“How close were you?”

“You act like I have no self-control. Am I some sort of brute to you?” Schlatt retorted, getting slightly defensive.

“Oh, no. Not at all. It’s just, I have broken even the strongest of wills by doing this, it honestly hurt my pride a bit, I want to see how close you were.”

“It hurt your pride? Good.” Schlatt closed the door to his apartment, managing to put his groceries away before laying down in the middle of the floor and yelling at the ceiling. There was a knock at the door.

“I’m still here, dude.”

“Good for you! Fuck off.” Noah left, if receding footsteps were anything to judge by. Schlatt let out a tired sigh. He needed a drink. Too bad he didn’t have any of that stuff. So instead he just lay there and stared at the ceiling, thinking about nothing and everything at once.

Several hours of staring at nothing later, something akin to an external force woke him up, but Schlatt knew it was just time to come back to mind. He sat up, and the raging headache from the day before was still there, knocking around in his head.

He should eat something. Maybe that would help. He went over to where he put his cereal, and felt a wave of nausea rip through him. He wasn’t hungry, he never was unless he was drunk or high, and he was neither of those right then. Sometimes he just sat down and forced himself to eat, mind over matter style, but he couldn’t find the strength to fight himself on this right then. He checked his communicator. There were a few messages for him to read.

Hugbox- _Hey, I’m sorry about yesterday. Might’ve pushed too far. Sbt._

Callmecarson- _Noah told me you have experience with computers. Want to swing by and see our system? We are looking for a new camera guy. 8)_

Wilbur Soot- _Hey, what are you doing today? Want to catch up later?_

Ted Nivison- _You called yourself Jschlatt? I thought your name was Schlagg._

Schlatt groaned. He read through all of them, electing to only respond to Carson’s, since he needed to find a job soon anyway. Couldn’t just go mining everyday.

Jschlatt- _Sure, I’ll come see it. Only one problem; I don’t know where you live._

He figured he should probably get back to Wilbur, but talking with Carson would be socially draining enough. He would get back to Wilbur later. He wasn’t even going to bother with the other two. Carson got back to him fairly quick, with directions this time instead of sending someone.

Schlatt pulled on his timbs, which he had kicked off last night, apparently. He changed from a turtleneck to a hoodie, and deemed himself ready to go. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Noah wasn’t lying, that black eye was persistent. It had been a little ‘going away’ present from the other kids in the center. Even without the black eye, he still looked like shit. Face somewhat gaunt, bags under his eyes. He really needed to actually sleep.

Eeh. He’d sleep when he was dead. For now, he set off, following Carson’s directions until he arrived at a large house that overlooked the town. He walked up to the front door, anxiety gnawing at his stomach. He knocked, praying it wasn’t anyone who didn’t like him who opened the door (cough Ted), not that he was naming any names. He was sure that all of them had every reason to like him. Not like he knew that there were at least three that didn’t trust him.

The door swung open, and Charlie grinned down at him. Schlatt regretted knocking. He just didn’t want to talk to people today. Still, he forced a smile and awkwardly waved.

“He, Schlatt! Carson said you were coming. Unfortunately, he’s caught up in something right now, so the rest of the guys here will help with the tour. Sound good?”

“Yep,” Schlatt tried to sound cheerful, but even to his own ears it sounded fake. Charlie started showing him through the house, pointing out rooms and occasionally making puns. Eventually, they got to the room where they apparently kept their computer stuff. 

“We don’t usually record in here, but we edit the videos here. It’s the office, I suppose.” 

“Cool.”

“No, that’s the fridge’s job. It can be whatever temperature in here.”

“I bet you feel proud of yourself, huh?” Schlatt asked in response to Charlie’s dumb joke. The man nodded. “So can I ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“What kind of hybrid are you? Some of the others are obvious, but I can’t quite place yours.”

“Oh, I’m a slime hybrid. Travis is a dog hybrid, Cooper is a fish hybrid. He’s good in water.” 

“Huh. Interesting.”

“My turn. So do you have like, a high sex drive?” Charlie asked, barely containing a grin.

“What the fuck?”

“Cuz you seem pretty _horny_ .” Schlatt had to pinch the bridge of his nose. He started walking down the hall, away from Charlie. “No, I’m the tour guide, don’t make me _tail_ along behind you!” Schlatt exhaled with a bit of a growl, but he was sure that Charlie didn’t hear it. Eventually they continued the tour as normal, and they ended up outside in the backyard. They had a pool. Cooper was sitting by it, his feet in the water. He turned when they came out.

“Hey, guys. Come on over. The water’s nice,” Cooper waved them over. Charlie kicked off his shoes and stuck his feet in the water, while Schlatt remained rooted to the spot. What if he fell in? He decided to keep a healthy distance of about three blocks between the pool and himself.

“Come on, Schlatt! It’s nice!”

“Uhh, no thanks, I’m good here. I like being dry.”

“Hmm. Oh well. This is actually the end of the tour. Ted should have been here to walk you back, and explain everything, but I don’t see him,” Cooper said, a grin on his face that held too much amusement. Schlatt whipped around upon realizing just what Cooper was amused at, but Ted had already grabbed Schlatt around the middle and lifted him up, carrying him closer to the pool. Schlatt flailed in the tall man’s grasp, trying to make it as difficult as possible for him without headbutting him. Ted held him over the edge of the pool, and Schlatt stilled, forcing his breathing to calm down.

“Ted, please put me down,” Schlatt said quietly.

“Pfft, okay,” Ted chuckled, loosening his grip.

“No NO no, on the ground! On the ground.” Ted chuckled and put him back down safely on the ground. Schlatt went back to where he was standing before, straightening his clothes and trying to pretend that whole thing never happened. He looked up, and the other three were laughing at him. He forced a chuckle. Ha ha ha. Very funny.

  
  
  


“Hey, guys, I just got back. Hey, Schlatt. What’s everyone laughing at?” Carson said, walking outside to stand next to Schlatt.

“Ted just, and Schlatt,” Cooper tried to speak through bouts of laughter. Carson looked at his three laughing friends, then at Schlatt, who was staring blankly at the water of the pool, not even so much as a ghost of a smile on his face. Clearly he didn’t think it was as funny as the other guys did.

“Well do you guys mind if I borrow Schlatt? To talk about the thing? With the computers?”

“Oh, no, go ahead.” Carson led Schlatt inside, to the room that they stored the computer stuff. Hopefully Charlie showed him this.

“So what happened? You clearly didn’t find it as funny as they did.”

“Huh? Oh. It really wasn’t anything important, I probably just overreacted.” The ram hybrid was tapping his hand against his leg.

“Well then if it wasn’t anything important, then why don’t you tell me?”

“I… fair point. Ted tried to toss me in the pool, I guess I just freaked out. My bad.”

“Why’d you freak out?” Carson prompted.

“I dunno. I just… nevermind. What did you bring me in here to talk about?” Subject change. Wilbur seemed to know the guy pretty well, he could ask the brit later.

“Right. So what did you think about the whole, being our camera guy, thing?”

“Oh, uh. It sounds fun, but are you sure you’d want me to do it? Not someone you trust more? Known for longer?”

“Well part of all this, dude, is that I’d like to get to know you more. Help you out of your shell. Find a friend group, find where you fit in with everything here.” Carson gave him a smile. Schlatt took a moment to think about all this.

“Okay. I’ll do it. Though I’m not sure your friends like me much.”

“Ahh, they’ll get used to it. They weren’t sure about Charlie either, but he fit in great. One more thing, it might end up being more convenient for everyone if you moved into the house with us, so that we don’t have to wait up on you and you don’t have to wake up super early,” Carson explained. Schlatt looked less sure.

“Um. I can just get up early, it’s okay.”

“It’s also so that we can get to you easier in case we decide to do something with no prior plan. It’s just easier on us.”

“I wouldn’t want to be in the way.”

“You wouldn’t. Our old camera guy lived with us, too. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get comfortable enough to participate in the videos.”

“You’re sure? Are the others okay with this?”

“Yeah, we discussed it last night. Everyone agreed.”

“Everyone?” Schlatt looked incredibly nervous.

“Yeah.”

“Then, I mean… sure? Yes.” he said decisively, looking like he regretted it right after he said it. Still, he didn’t take it back, so Carson continued.

“Awesome. We’ll get your room ready. You can probably start moving your stuff in day after tomorrow.”

“I mean, I don’t have much to move,” Schlatt said with a chuckle.

“Well that makes it easy on you. We’ll get your bed ready, and a dresser, and we’ll clear off the desk. Anything you might want in there? Mini fridge, fancy lamp?”

“Uh, the fridge might be nice, if it isn’t a bother.”

“Okay. see you day after tomorrow, then.” Carson walked Schlatt out, made sure he had directions to get to his apartment, and then went back inside, to his room.

Callmecarson- _Wilbur, I have a question._

Wilbur Soot- _go on._

Callmecarson- _Can i call?_

Wilbur beat him to it, his communicator ringing. Wilbur’s face popped up on the screen.

“What’s up?” the brit asked.

“Hey, Wilbur. So, Schlatt agreed to move in with us.”

“Really? That is a surprise.”

“Yeah, I was shocked he agreed so fast, too. He seems pretty convinced that most of us don’t trust him.”

“Sounds like Schlatt.”

“Yeah. But anyway, I did have a question. So, I walked out to the pool deck, and Schlatt, Cooper, Charlie, and Ted are all out there. Ted, Charlie, and Cooper are all laughing their asses off at something, and Schlatt looks like he just saw a ghost.” Wilbur already looks like he knows why, but he lets Carson finish. “When I spoke to Schlatt, he explained that Ted pretended to try and toss him in the pool. Why would that be such a bad thing?”

“I’m not sure he would like me telling you this, so please don’t tell anyone else, but Schlatt can’t swim for shit. That isn’t even what he doesn’t want people to know. Well, I mean, he doesn’t, he thinks people will make fun of him or try and teach him. What he really does not want people to know, and I repeat, you cannot tell anyone, I am only telling you because someone in the house probably needs to know, is that Schlatt is fucking terrified of water.”

“Why? That’s such a tame thing to fear.”

“Believe me, he knows that. He just fears nothing over it. Not pain, not death, but if you throw him in water, I’m ninety percent sure that he would actually take death over it.”

“Why?” 

“Several bad experiences with water. Not to mention, the guy can’t swim.”

“Oh. What bad experiences?”

“Now that I will let him tell you on his own time. He probably won’t, considering how bad he is with people, but all the same. I already told you this, and he really doesn’t want anyone to know, so please let this stay between us, unless necessary.”

“Got it. Thanks, Wilbur,” Carson said. Wilbur waved goodbye, and hung up. Scared of water, huh? Good to know. Very good to know. They had been planning some poolside activities, but Schlatt would probably be recording, anyway, so that would give him an excuse to stay away from the water. 

Carson still had half a mind to go out and smack Ted for scaring him that bad. But it wasn’t like Ted knew. Even still, they were supposed to be trying to get Schlatt to warm up to them, not withdraw further. 

  
  
  


Schlatt got back to his apartment and immediately slammed his head into the wall. Why did he say yes? Why why why? Now he was stuck in a commitment that he didn’t really want to be in, he was just too afraid of disappointing them to say no. He groaned, and sat down on the floor, sluggishly beginning to collect his things. He knew that he didn’t move in until the day after, but honestly? He didn’t really want to turn his back on any of them until he knew they could be trusted. Which meant, knowing him, that he wouldn’t be able to sleep properly while they were in the house. So he packed up his things that night, and laid down on his cold floor, shut his eyes, and tried to sleep.

His stomach growled. Of course it did. He sat up, made his way to the kitchen, and ate a rather ungodly amount of cereal quickly, before returning to his room and the cold floor. He shut his eyes and tried to think about nothing. 

It must have worked, because he came to at some random time of day, Which he checked his communicator to find was around ten in the morning. Huh. Not as long as he thought. Until he read the messages people had left for him.

Callmecarson- _Hey, Schlatt, when are you planning on being here today?_

Wait, _today_? But… that would mean...

He slept through the entirety of the previous day. This was why he didn’t sleep. Because he missed entire days. That also might be the cause of why he missed several days, but he shoved the thought away. He messaged Carson back.

Jschlatt- _hopefully as soon as i can. Have to pack up a few more things._

All that was left, really, was his cereal and milk, but he could put the cereal in the backpack, and he could carry the milk. It would kinda suck if it spilled in his backpack. He ate a large portion of it, before packing it up, just in case he needed an excuse to not eat around them. Never know if they might poison his food or something. He knew it was irrational, in the back of his mind. They wouldn’t poison him. Right? Well, better safe than sorry. 

He shot Carson a quick message.

Jschlatt- _on my way over_.

Callmecarson- _ok._

Schlatt slung his backpack over his shoulders and took a long look in the mirror. He looked… better? He still looked terrible, but… less so. He was ready. He could do not-so-terrible. Hegrabbed his milk, locked the door for the last time, left the keys with the guy in charge of the building, and started walking towards the Lunch Club house.


	2. Volcanoes erupt when provoked sometimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw for slight accidental victim blaming and minor self harm

Schlatt walked up to the door and knocked before he could talk his way out of it. There was a brief silence, before a muffled “HE’S HERE!” sounded, and the door was thrown open, Charlie and Travis both wedged in the doorway to greet him. He shyly waved, and they ushered him in. They led him to his room.

“We’ll let you get situated. Later, someone will teach you how to use the stuff we have and edit videos.”

“Okay.” he gave them a small smile, and they walked back down the hall. He closed the door and looked around his new room. It would have been simple enough to them, but it was the nicest place he had ever had to himself. There was a bed, a comfy looking couch, a desk with a computer already there for him, presumably to use for editing their stuff, and, when he looked to the side of the desk, there was indeed a mini fridge. He grinned harder than he had in a while. This was his room. This was now his stuff.

He put his pictures on the walls, put his milk in the mini fridge and his cereal on top of it, and then put his clothes in the dresser. Once he was done putting his things away, he looked at his new bed, grinning like a kid in a candy store. He practically launched himself at the bed, the bed catching him gracefully. Oh, man. He was almost looking forward to the nightmares, if he got to sleep in this bed. He got back up after a few minutes of bliss, reminding himself that he couldn’t get too comfortable yet. Maybe someday.

He sat down at the computer and turned it on. It was a similar system to what he learned how to use, so he took some time to figure out what was different. It was pretty easy after a few minutes to operate the computer.

Someone knocked on the door, and he hummed in acknowledgement. Carson came in and looked over his shoulder. 

“Familiarizing yourself?”

“Mmhmm. Not too difficult,” Schlatt said. He turned to face him. “What did you need?”

“You wanna learn how we edit stuff?” Carson asked. Schlatt stood.

“Sure.” Carson led him to the room with all the equipment, where there were a few computers in here, as well. They each sat down at one.

“Okay,” Carson started explaining what programs they use to edit, and then he began walking Schlatt through how to edit. “It’s mostly just combing through streams and finding the best parts and then putting them in a video. We try and make some good transitions, but you might end up just skipping to the next part some of the time.” Schlatt nodded. Carson sent him a stream and took him back to his room. “See what you can do with this. Also, if you can, we were planning on doing an activity sometime this month, while it’s still warm, so if you can find any suggestions. Maybe to do with the pool, or something else. You don’t have to participate, but you can if you like.” Thank God. Schlatt did not really want anything to do with that pool. He would be just fine being their camera guy. Carson patted him on the back and left him alone with the stream. Schlatt began watching it, pausing it and clipping all the funny bits and bits that contributed to the plot whenever he came across them. There were a lot. He learned a lot about each of the people in this house just by watching the video, or at least, the mask that they put on. He should make one, just in case they ever asked him to participate. A public face. One that he could fall back on in case he ever panicked. He would start working on that, mulling it over in the back of his head while he worked.

Eventually, he finally got through the stream, and he looked at the video he had amassed. It was still an hour long. Someone had mentioned that it should be around twenty to thirty minutes. Time to see what could be taken out. He went through the entire thing at least three times, taking out the less funny bits, before finally narrowing it down to a safe twenty-four minutes. He looked at the time. He had been working on this for twelve hours. What the hell. He knew he should probably eat, but he just wasn’t feeling it. He got up and stretched, then poked his head out into the hall. Okay. the way was clear. He snuck into the bathroom, doing his business quickly. As he was washing his hands, Ted walked into the bathroom.

“Schlagg. I didn’t realize you were here. I mean they said you were moving in today, but you’ve been so quiet all day.”

“Sorry. Been busy.”

“With what? It’s like, one in the morning.”

“Yeah. I was, um. They were showing me how to edit, they gave me one of their streams to cut up. Just finished.”

“Yeah? How long was the stream?”

“Bout three and a half hours.”

“And how long is your video? If it’s too long, people won’t watch it.”

“Twenty-four minutes.”

“Ooh, nice. They must have told you that, then.” Schlatt nodded. Ted smirked at him. “You’ll get faster at it, don’t worry. Can I see it?” Schlatt led Ted to his room, and pulled up the video. As they watched it, Ted kept making little comments on the video, criticizing everything from the transitions to “why is that in the video, it’s not even relevant.” And twenty four long minutes later, he sat for another twenty listening to Ted rant about what he would’ve done and why it would’ve been better. At the end of Ted’s speech, Schlatt bit his tongue before he could say some snarky comment about how Ted could do it if it was that terrible.

“Well, thanks for the advice, Ted.”

“Yup,” Ted said, leaving the room and closing the door. Schlatt leaned his head back and sighed heavily. He let his shoulders relax, only just then realizing how tense they were. Then the door opened again, and Ted poked his head in.

“Your room decorations could use some work, by the way.” He said, smirking. 

“You know, Ted, half the things you say I am convinced you only say them to be a dick,” Schlatt found himself saying before he could stop himself. Ted chuckled and shut the door. Schlatt lat his head fall forward, smacking into his desk.

  
  
  


Ted shut the door, immediately hearing a loud smack right after he did so. He was tempted to see what it was, but Schlatt seemed pretty annoyed with him. He was clearly trying to be polite before, but after that last comment about his room, Schlatt was clearly done being polite. Still, he wasn’t wrong, that was indeed what Ted did sometimes. He just hadn’t had anyone say it that bluntly in a while.

He silently opened the door again, and Schlatt was glaring at his computer, mouse hovering over the delete button on the video he’d made. It really wasn’t that bad, especially for his first one. In fact, it was pretty good. But Ted was trying to show him what he did when he edited his videos, but it quite possibly could have come off as “here’s what you did wrong”.

Schlatt sighed and moved his mouse away from the trash icon, tabbing over to do something else instead. Ted closed the door just as quietly, and walked back to his room to get some sleep. It was late.

  
  
  


Schlatt did not sleep. He did not need it, thankyouverymuch. He was too busy trying to prove to that utter _asshole_ that Ted could be that he was actually okay at editing. Criticize his entire video he will _not_. He found out that Carson linked him up to where they put the Lunch Club streams, and pulled up another one.

By the time it was ten in the morning, he had gotten done with two more, mostly by dual monitoring and multitasking. His first one that he did the day before took him so long because he was figuring out how to work it. These ones did not take nearly so long, because now he knew.

He even took some time after he finished those two streams to watch some of the Lunch Club’s videos to find out how they did it previously, and what they were like on camera. He had learned a lot by just watching streams, but the comedic timing of the transitions in the videos was able to teach him more.

At one point, Carson poked his head in and asked him how it was coming. He showed him what he got done, and Carson showed him how to post it to their channel and make a clickbait title.

Schlatt spent the next few days going completely unnoticed by the rest of the Lunch Club, quietly editing all of their streams that they hadn’t done yet. At some point, Travis poked his head in, told him he had been here for five days so far. How interesting. Travis offered him something to eat, Schlatt told him he would eat later.

It wasn’t anything against any of the people there, but Schlatt simply had something of a paranoid nature. He didn’t really trust that they (Ted or Noah) wouldn’t poison his food. Not to name any names or anything, but those two just seem the most likely. Maybe Charlie. He would be the type to poison him just to make a pun as he was dying.

Eventually, though, he ran out of streams to edit, and had nothing to do. That was when literally everyone in the house opened his door and basically manhandled him out into the kitchen.

“I’m not hungry. Really. I have cereal in my room.”

“Do you have anything to eat it with?”

“I… no.”

“Schlatt, it has been a week that you have lived here and none of us have seen you come out. So tonight, we socialize. You are going to eat something, you’re gonna take a nap, and then we’re going to go get some drinks or something,” Cooper said. He nodded shyly, and they all sat down at the table, where there was some food ready. He waited until all of them started eating before starting to pick at his own food.

“What? It’s not poisoned, dude, just eat.” Charlie said.

“I know. Can’t be too cautious.” He took a bite of his food. He didn’t realize how hungry he was until he started eating, but he still ate slowly, so that he could still maintain that he was fine. They finished eating, and Noah pulled him aside.

“Hey. You know that we wouldn’t poison you, right?” He asked.

“Duh. Why do you say that?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem like you are a bit paranoid.”

“I…” he had no answer to that.

“Is that why you’re not sleeping? Or eating? Because you think we’re gonna do something to you? We aren’t.”

“How do you know I’m not sleeping?”

“I mean it was a hunch before, but you just confirmed it. You look dead on your feet, Schlatt. Go take a nap, man,” Noah patted him on the back. Schlatt numbly nodded, going back to his room. In all honesty, he had forgotten that eating and sleeping were two basic necessities. He was tired, sure. He was tired all week. He was just so used to living on the edge of the abyss, being pushed to the limits of his body. In all the places he’d been before, he hadn’t ever been able to sleep well, and when he ate, he never ate much. He just figured this was his normal. But he wanted to be okay. He decided this when he moved here. He was gonna make himself okay, even if it killed him. He was gonna die an okay person.

But getting okay was hard. He’d tried before, alone, and he couldn’t do it. Of course, that was when he was in a place that wasn’t okay, so maybe now would be different. 

Of course it would be hard. But the first two steps that he could take was letting his body start healing. Eat and sleep regularly, would be a good start, he thought. He should write this down. He grabbed a pen and paper and began writing an okayness to-do list. He listed off a few things to help him get started, then reminded himself that he should take a nap.

He put down his pen, kicked off his shoes, flopped down on his bed, and closed his eyes. Sleep consumed him uncharacteristically quickly.

He dreamed of water. A dark sort of water that just insisted upon being the only thing that consumed his vision. There was no light, no warmth. This was familiar. A reoccurring dream nightmare that his mind placed him in whenever it couldn’t think of an actual nightmare to throw him into. He could never move in this dream until it was time to wake up.

He sank lower and lower in the water, the pressure building up, yet somehow he could still breathe. He could always breathe in this water, but that didn’t make the sinking feeling any less terrifying.

In fact, there had only ever been one time that he had this dream and not been able to breathe, and that was when he was literally drowning in the floods with Wilbur. But that was a different darkness. Similar, but much, much darker. But the pressure was lighter then.

He slowly regained feeling in his body as the pressure let up, signaling it was time to wake up. He inhaled slowly, then exhaled, and opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the light. He sat up, waiting out the dizziness from sitting up too fast, then went into the kitchen for some cold water.

The Lunch Club was having, well, lunch, which was odd for him, because didn’t they just have lunch before he went to sleep?

“Aah, if it isn’t Schleeping beauty,” Ted said loudly, announcing Schlatt’s presence to the rest of the group. They beckoned him over and handed him a plate, implying that he was supposed to eat.

“Didn’t you guys, like, just have lunch?” Schlatt asked.

“Dude, you slept straight through the rest of yesterday and like, half of today.”

“Oh,” he said. Of course. He sat down awkwardly and got some food. 

“So, Schlatt, now that we’re all here, we can discuss some upcoming things that we’re doing,” Carson said, already done with his food. “Any suggestions for content?” Oh, Schlatt was supposed to think of something.

“We could have a pool party or something. Like, pool games. But competitive. We could call it, like, the Summer Games. We could do pool races and cannonball contests,” suggested Cooper. Of course the fish guy would suggest the pool.

“Good idea, Coop. Sound good?” Carson asked, everyone at the table nodded, and Schlatt awkwardly smiled and nodded. He could just record it, it would be fine. “Great. Let’s do that on Saturday, maybe? Good. Anyone else?”

“I heard there’s gonna be a house party for Halloween. We could go to that, see if anything interesting happens,” Charlie suggested. Some of the others grinned and nodded, where some (Travis and Schlatt) glanced around nervously. 

Schlatt finished up his food, intending on going back to his room to disappear again, but was quickly pulled back into conversation when someone noticed him slipping out of the kitchen.

“Not so fast, Schlatt. We have plans today,” Ted chuckled. Schlatt sat back down guiltily.

“Like what?”

“Well, none of us know you that well, and what brings down walls better than alcohol?” A few of the guys cheered along, and Schlatt was suddenly a lot more interested.

“I’m listening,” Schlatt said. There were a few chuckles, including his own.

“Have you ever noticed your ears?” Travis asked, still chuckling. Schlatt stopped laughing slowly once he registered the question.

“Why yes, Travis. They are a bit hard to ignore,” he said, going on the defensive. Whatever they had to say about his ears, he had no doubt heard it before.

“No no, they flick. You were like, ‘I’m listening’, and they flicked around. It’s the funniest thing ever.” Oh. He thought he was going to say something else.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess it would be.”

“It’s okay, mine do that too.” Travis smiled at him. He awkwardly smiled back, letting his defensiveness fade away. He needed to make that not his first reaction. If he wanted to make friends, and he did, he decided just then, then he would have to train himself to not jump to the conclusion that they were going to insult him. 

  
  


That evening they were all headed down to the local bar. Carson explained on the way there, since Schlatt asked, that SMPLive’s alcohol policies were a bit looser than other places. They could drink at eighteen, whereas other places had a 21+ limit. So that was fantastic for him.

They all ordered drinks and then sat down at a table.

“So Schlatt, who do you think likes to get the most drunk out of all of us, hmm?” Charlie asked. Schlatt took a swig of his drink, looking around.

“I think Cooper, honestly.” The fish man sputtered with mock indignation. “No, no, hear me out. You already seem like a druggie to me, no offense but I don’t think I’m wrong, so alcohol should be no stranger to you. Anything to get that high, right?” The people at the table laughed. “I think Travis just doesn’t seem like the type to drink, so I’m sorry in advance. Ted is the type to take any sort of challenge and try and win, so he’s the guy to go get shots with. I don’t know about the rest of you. Again, I mean no offense, I’m just calling it as I see it,” Schlatt said, putting his hands up in surrender as the others laughed.

“No, you got it pretty accurately,” Cooper laughed. 

About halfway through the night, they were still drinking, though a few of the guys had slowed down. Ted saw one of his friends, and pardoned himself to go talk to him. Schlatt began running out of words to say. Started pacing himself out. He was honestly surprised with himself. He thought that in a bar setting, he’d be a little bit more stressed, but he wasn’t. He just wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the company that helped negate the stress.

He felt someone nudge him. It was Ted. The tall man jerked his head over to the bar, where his friend sat.

“Hey. You must be Lunch Club’s new guy. The name’s Sam. Schlagg, right?” Ted’s friend said. Of course.

“Uh, no. Ted mispronounces it sometimes, it can be a little hard to get. Schlatt.” 

“Why that’s not hard to pronounce at all!”

“You don’t say.” They talked for about ten minutes before Schlatt began trying to get back to the group he came with. Ted and his friend had ganged up on him, mixing little insults and roasts in with the conversation. They eventually began talking about their childhoods, talking about their parents.

“What was your dad like, Schlagg?” Ted asked, words beginning to slur from the alcohol. Schlatt tried to find an answer that didn’t tell them anything.

“There are no words to describe my father,” he ended up saying.

“I bet he was like, seven foot tall with fucken devil horns or something, with the way you turned out,” Sam chuckled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Schlatt asked, blood pressure beginning to rise even higher than it had been with the insults.

“Well, you won’t talk about anything, so we gotta make assumptions and you can correct us later.”

“No I mean ‘with the way I turned out’. What is that supposed to mean?”

“You seem overly defensive. With everything. Something must have made you like that,” Ted shrugged.

“Oh, I wasn’t even gonna go there, I don’t know him that much, I was just gonna talk about the horns. Part goat or something,” Sam said to Ted, talking about Schlatt right in front of him.

“No, he’s really defensive all the time. I mean, everything happens for a reason, though, so whatever happened, you know. Must have been something you did, man.” Ted said, including him back into the conversation after explaining to Sam. Schlatt’s head spun. He probably hadn’t meant what he said in the way that Schlatt took it, but in that moment, all logic was forgotten in favor of unmistakable nausea. He stood up.

“Ted, you know how some people call you an asshole? Because you say some things so offhandedly?” He said, attempting to not just throw up on Ted and his friend.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, because it is one hundred percent true. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Schlatt said oh-so-politely, before dropping the smile entirely for favor of a glare. He turned around before they could even get a word in edgewise. Distantly, he could hear Ted ask; “did I say something?”, but he was already in the bathroom.

He leaned over the sink, breathing heavily. Of course. He was finally getting better. He was finally leaving behind the people who would tell him that it was all his fault, everyone had a choice in their lives. He was finally pushing that thought that they were right out of his mind. And then Ted goes and says that and fucks him up all over again.

Amazing how fast progress can be forgotten, be found himself thinking as he became aware that he was scratching at his arms, harder and harder. It hurt, yeah. Stung at his arms, but it broke his mind out of the dark haze that consumed him when he couldn’t control it. Right now, he didn’t think he had the strength of mind to even try. He looked up at himself in the mirror.

“You fool. Too naive despite your experience to think you could learn to trust,” he said to himself, letting his tears fall and wrapping his hands around his horns. If anyone asked why his eyes were red, he’d just blame it on weed or something. The door started opening, so he quickly splashed water in his face and pretended to be trying to sober himself up.

He went back out into the bar to find his housemates, and found them all standing around the bar. He went up and nudged Carson.

“Can we go?” He asked.

“In a second, Schlatt. Ted got in a fight, we gotta wait for him.” Carson replied. Schlatt peered around him to see, and sure enough, Ted was exchanging hits and punches with some random guy, as Sam cheered them on.

“So if the guy were to suddenly be not able to fight anymore, like if he were unconscious or something, we could go?”

“Yeah, but we don’t have a way to just fucking knock someone out, dude,” Carson rolled his eyes before looking back up at the fight. Schlatt ducked between him and Noah, and was paused by Noah saying;

“Ted, look out, that guy has a knife!” Schlatt looked, and the guy had pulled out a pocket knife and was swinging it at Ted, who dodged the first swing but then bumped against the bar counter. Schlatt walked up and smacked the guy’s hand as he was starting to swing again, knocking the knife out of his hand. Schlatt grabbed the guy’s shirt and headbutted him. He went down. The crowd went silent.

“Can we go now?” Schlatt asked somewhat sarcastically, before shooting a dark glare at Ted as they started walking out of the bar. Schlatt saw the guy’s knife on the ground and picked it up. It had a nice wooden looking handle, very polished. “This is a nice knife. Be a shame if someone took it,” he said to the guy, who very clearly could not hear him. He put it in his pocket. He followed the guys out, not saying a word until they got back to the house. It wasn’t that no one tried to talk to him, they did, but he didn’t answer, and eventually they got the hint.

Everyone dispersed, going to do their own things, likely sleep off the oncoming hangovers they would get. Schlatt, however, went outside to sit on the porch. He let the night seep into his skin, chilling away the darkness inside him. He sat out there for at least two hours, trying to combat the things that had been resurfaced by what Ted said.

It was true, in a way. Everything did happen for a reason, but not all of it was his fault. Everyone had always told him that it was his choice what happened to him, but really, it wasn’t.

The door opened, and someone stood just behind him, near the wall. He didn’t look up at them, rather waiting for them to speak to see who it was.

“What are you doing out here?” Ted asked.

“Just sitting.”

“Can I sit?” Ted sat down before Schlatt could answer.

“Yeah, I fucken guess you can,” he said. A feeble attempt at humor. His heart wasn’t in it.

“So seriously. What are you doing out here?”

“Depends. Why do you care to know?” 

“Because I knew I fucked up after you went to the bathroom, and I want to know how badly.”

“Mmm.” Schlatt still didn’t face him. He fought to keep his face passive.

“Listen, I’m sorry about what I said, alright? I know you’re pissed at me, so I’m sorry.” Ted said. 

“About what?” Schlatt pressed.

“About what I said about you, what I said about your dad. That was too far. I’m sorry.” Ted didn’t even know. That alone was what set Schlatt off. He had been keeping it together so well, and then Ted didn’t even remember what he’d said. Schlatt had moved before he even registered. His fist flew out, striking the wall next to Ted, hard.

“Fuck. Sorry,” he said softly.

  
  
  


At the bar, Ted had made a mistake. When talking to his friend, he brought up Schlatt, since he was new, and it was an easy subject of conversation. Sam wanted to meet him, of course. So he called Schlatt over, and introduced him. Sam was a bit of a douche to new people, simply because he thought it was funny. So he kept on slipping in little insults and roasts, and eventually Ted joined in because it was so funny. At some point, the conversation had steered to insulting Schlatt’s parents, and Ted had something wrong that he didn’t really remember, since it was probably just some offhand comment. The moment he’d said it, though, there was a visible change on Schlatt’s face. Before he had looked bored, almost. Pissed, maybe. If you squinted. After, he looked just fucking livid. For a millisecond. Then he got it under control. That was the moment that Ted knew that he’d fucked up. Ted envied Schlatt’s ability to swallow his emotions like that.

Schlatt’s had called him an asshole and then excused himself. Ted had done something to some guy, probably one of Sam’s friends, and the guy started swinging. 

They traded punches for a minute, and then the guy pulled out a knife. Schlatt had appeared out of nowhere, straight up bitch-slapped the knife away, then K.O.ed the guy by head butting him. Strong skull Schlatt. That’s what they should call him. Then they went home and dispersed.

Ted had walked to the kitchen to get some water, and he noticed that the porch light was still on. He went to turn it off, but he saw Schlatt sitting outside, so he downed his water and went out to join him.

He had tried to apologize for whatever he said, understanding that he’d taken it too far, but when he tried to apologize for saying all the stuff about his dad, Schlatt had moved so fast that Ted wouldn’t have even known that Schlatt had punched the wall right next to him except that he pulled his arm away much slower.

“Fuck. Sorry.” Schlatt withdrew entirely, whatever emotion he had been acting on just then now entirely invisible to Ted’s eyes.

“That’s my line, man.” He waited for Schlatt to say something, anything, but the ram stayed silent. “I’m sorry. About what I said. That was my point. I know I messed up. I gotta know how bad, though.” Schlatt sighed.

“I don’t care about what you said about my dad. I don’t give a fuck. Whatever you said about him is inconsequential, because I guarantee you, I have said worse. I fucking hated my dad, alright? I don’t give a damn if you insult him. Fucker deserves it.” Schlatt snarled at him. Ted was confused. If it wasn’t that, then what? “What I got mad about was the little fucking implication that I deserved it. That I had it coming. ‘Everything happens for a reason, Schlatt. You must have done something, Schlatt’. That’s what you said. Those are your words. Or are those the words of a drunk man who doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. Are those the words of someone who doesn’t care enough about the one they’re directed at to think about the consequences.” Schlatt was seething now, all that barely concealed anger bubbling up out of him now. He was facing Ted now, finally, and Ted could see the fiery anger staining Schlatt’s face, hatred swimming just behind his eyes, though not quite directed at him.

“Schlatt, I-”

“No. You shut the fuck up. You want to know how badly you fucked up, you shut up and let me tell you. Do you know how frustrating it is to try, and try, and try for weeks, months, years to fight the general consensus that everything that happens to you is your fault? I have been told that all my life, Ted. For twelve fucking years. Can you imagine telling a six year old that everything that the adults around him do to him for the next few years is entirely his fault? ‘Hey little Schlatt, you’re gonna have the worst childhood, and it’ll be all your fault!’ ‘Hey, little Schlatt, your father is gonna fucking hate you!’ ‘Hey, little Schlatt, you get to learn how to sit still and shut up too early in your goddamned life, or else the people in the fucking coats are gonna do bad shit again!’ “Hey, little Schlatt, remember all those things that you were put through at the hands of cruel adults? That’s all your fucking fault!’ And for a good long time, Ted, I fucking believed it, too. But it’s not. Because that’s out of my hands. All I can control is how I deal with what is dealt. For the longest time, Ted, life has had it out for me. Life doesn’t want me to live. It has dealt me a bad hand, Ted. And when Death made a call, I wanted to take its hand so fucking badly, Ted. But I didn’t. Because I don’t wanna die. I figured that out a while ago. I just wanna kill the, the _thing_ inside me that tells me all the horrible things I’ve already been told.” Schlatt paused to breathe.

“Ted, I thought I finally beat it. It had shut up for a few days, I thought I really got it out. After years of trying. I was better. And then you come along, saying some shit like that, and it’s back, full force. It’s dizzying, like fucking vertigo or some shit. I hate it. I fucking hate myself. I hate everything, Ted. I don’t want to. Everything just makes it so damn hard not to.” He was scratching, clawing at one of his arms anxiously.

“Hey, stop that, you’re gonna scratch yourself raw,” Ted said, grabbing his wrist. It genuinely hurt him at how hard Schlatt flinched back. “Sorry.”

“Whatever. There you go,” Schlatt finished, and Ted sighed.

“I’m sorry.”

“I actually do not want an apology. You saying that doesn’t mean shit to me unless you mean it. Apologies are nothing without action behind the words, and you have always seemed insincere. You can say it all you like, I’m not gonna accept it just yet. Not until you fucking act like you’re sorry. You’re only sorry right now because I blew up.” That hurt, a little bit. Of course he understood why. Ted had been nothing but an absolute dick to Schlatt since he came here. But if Schlatt didn’t want an apology, if he wasn’t ready to forgive just yet, which was completely understandable, then maybe Ted could find something else to help them still be friends.

“I think we started off on the wrong foot,” Ted said. Schlatt scoffed his agreement. Ted stuck out his hand for a handshake. “Hi. I’m Ted.” He offered a smile. Schlatt looked at his extended hand, then looked at him, then back at the hand. Something in his eyes softened, and he accepted the hand. A new start, almost.

“Schlatt.” They sat in silence now, until Schlatt started chuckling at something.

“What?”

“Look at what I did to my fucking hand, dude. When I punched the wall.” His first two knuckles were rather obviously broken, and his fingers were bleeding. “I broke my knuckle, how funny is that? I didn’t even feel it.”

“Dude. That’s… not good. We have health potions, come on.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll put a bandaid on it later.” He chuckled.

“Dude.”

“I’d have to set it first, anyway, otherwise it won’t heal right, and that always hurts more than the actual break.”

“We have to do something about it. It’s broken, Schlatt.” The ram hybrid rolled his eyes and stood up. Ted led him inside. Charlie was leaning against the counter, and looked very surprised when they came in from outside.

“What were you guys doing outside?” Charlie asked.

“What are you doing up?” Schlatt retorted.

“I heard a crack, and voices. I wanted to know what it was.” Schlatt started chuckling. Ted joined in when he realized what at. When Schlatt had punched the wall, it had made a crack in the stone. The voices was probably Schlatt yelling, though it would have been indistinguishable to anyone inside. “What’s so funny?”

“I think I know what you’re talking about, man. Hey, by the way, have you met Ted?” Schlatt asked. Ted was very confused. What?

“Did you hit your head or something? You’ve been living with him for a week,” Charlie deadpanned.

“What? No, I just met him outside! We just met.” Ohhhh. Schlatt was taking the whole ‘reintroduction’ thing to another level. He was pretending that he had just met ‘this Ted’, choosing to overlook the asshole that Ted had been all week. A step. It actually made Ted inwardly smile, a bit. He was letting Ted start over, giving him another shot at being less of a dick to him. He could play along.

“Anyway, Charlie, could you get some health potions?” Ted asked.

“Sure. Why?” Charlie went to go get some, sticking around for an answer.

“This dumbass broke his hand.” Charlie’s eyes widened comically. Schlatt placed his hand on the counter and got ready to set it. Charlie rushed to go get the health potions. Schlatt hesitated. “Do you want me to do it?”

“Yeah,” said Schlatt, before sitting down. “One sec, gotta do something.” He took a few deep breaths, then his breathing evened out and his eyes glazed over. Ted waited for him to say something, then realized that he was bracing himself, so Ted quickly fixed the bone back to where it should be, and then fumbled for some tape to keep it there until the healing potions did their magic. Schlatt’s face had twitched when Ted had fixed the hand, and his jaw clenched, but otherwise the ram man had remained stoic.

“Wow, strong resolve,” Charlie said. He had come back in as Ted was fixing it. He turned to face Ted. “Is he even there, like mentally? Did he just, like, dissociate on command or something?”

“Oh, I’m here, alright,” Schlatt growled, teeth still clenched. That hand probably hurt like the devil. Charlie poured some of the healing potion on Schlatt’s hand, watching it sink into the skin, then handed it to the other hand for Schlatt to drink. He went to sniff at it, then seemed to change his mind and just go for it. 

“Thanks,” Schlatt murmured once done. The healing potion had taken effect now, and you could visibly see the hand healing. He moved it around once the effects were done, held up a thumbs up, then found where they kept all their bandaids. He picked the stupidest one, and put it on his hand.

“You know that doesn’t help anything, right?” Charlie asked.

“It helps me,” Schlatt said simply, smiling sarcastically. The ram man disappeared, presumably to go pretend to sleep.

“So why was he pretending to have just met you?” Charlie asked.

“We came to a bit of an understanding.”

“Oh. That’s good, it was honestly starting to get really tense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dude, your hazing could use some work. What you call hazing, most people would call just being an asshole. Ninety percent sure that he was so done with that.”

“Yeah, he said that, too.”

“Go figure.” Ted chuckled and left the room. He had some stuff to think about.

  
  
  


Even if Ted had completely fucked up his mental state, Schlatt felt… good. When Ted had stuck out his hand and reintroduced himself, he had unintentionally given Schlatt something he had never had before. A second chance. A redo. As much as his mental state was going to be wrecked for the next few weeks, he felt hopeful again.

Getting everything off his chest had felt… surprisingly liberating. He might have said it to the wrong person, but it felt like years of pressure coming off of him in that one instance. Hopefully Ted wouldn’t tell anyone, but even if he did, it would be okay. He shot Ted a message.

Jschlatt- _hey, man. Sorry for word vomiting earlier. Thanks for listening ig. Pls don’t tell the others, I’ll tell them on my own time._

Ted didn’t respond immediately, but Schlatt remembered that he hadn’t really formally forgiven Ted yet. It would take awhile for him to get better, but the fact that Ted had gone out of his way to offer the both of them a second chance, to show that he really was sorry enough to try and save any friendship that they had… Schlatt really hoped that Ted hadn’t just done this because he blew up in his face.

Jschlatt- _I accept your apology, btw._

A second chance. Hopefully he could do this one right. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I am posting this at a very controversial time for Lunch Club, namely Carson, but I have been planning this for too long to try and just writ him out or replace him.
> 
> so, there. sorry if it offends anyone, but work is work and i dont really want it to be in vain. :)
> 
> ps Sam is not an actual character in this, and isnt based off of any real person, it's just the first name I thought of.


	3. drowning in the spaces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> let the end of summer games begin.
> 
> cw drowning

Saturday rolled around fast, and currently Schlatt was helping set up cameras around the pool. He would have one with him, but it was always best to get multiple angles, Carson said. 

They were having a pool party. They would be doing various pool games, such as chicken fights, cannonball contests, and lastly, a bellyflop competition. They were calling over a few friends to judge them. Wilbur, and some guy named Josh who was also a streamer. Schlatt hadn’t met him yet.

Schlatt finished setting up the cameras, and went back inside. He overheard a conversation, so he ducked behind the wall to wait until it was done.

“I’m just saying, there’s something up. He doesn’t want to participate in the games, but he isn’t a judge. There’s gotta be some secret role that Carson has Schlatt in right now that he’s gonna spring on us,” Schlatt heard Cooper saying.

“Well even if there is, it won’t be anything dangerous, it’s probably just for the cameras,” Ted countered.

“That’s fair enough. I wonder what it is.” Schlatt found himself grinning. Those two were gonna be waiting all day for something to happen, some twist that they thought Carson had planned with Schlatt, and there was actually nothing. He fought back a chuckle as he thought of them just waiting all day for nothing to happen. He chose that moment to hop into the conversation.

“Hey, guys. What’s up?” Schlatt asked, putting on a sly smirk to lead them on.

“Nothing much. Say, has Carson said anything to you about the thing going on today?” Cooper tried to pry.

“Oh, yeah. I’m recording.”

“But the cameras basically record themselves all you do is press start.”

“No, I mean I’m recording some stuff that might be out of view. Like on the porch or something.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

“But I mean hey, you never know what could happen, right?” Schlatt shrugged and went back outside, just barely catching Cooper say; 

“I told you they were planning something!” Schlatt snickered.

About an hour later, everyone was wearing their swim trunks, regrettably including Schlatt, because Carson said him wearing his sweatpants would ruin the summer vibe that they had going on. Which meant that they could all see his hooves that he normally hid. Thankfully, no one said anything. Yet.

He had always been really self conscious about his rammish features, going so far as to hide the ones he could, like his hooves and his tail, depending on what shirt he was wearing. His favorite shirt, a blue turtleneck (which he left at the children’s home, he remembered), had covered his tail really well. The only thing he couldn’t hide was his horns and his ears. He had tried to wear a beanie to cover it, but the horns were so hard to get the thing around that he just stopped. 

But no one saying anything about his hooves helped. He expected at least a few comments or puns from Charlie, but it never came. He was grateful for it. He did feel really weird in just shorts and a tshirt, though.

He was currently watching the guys play chicken fight, where one would sit on the other’s shoulders and fight another pair. Since he was the only one of seven right then not in the pool, he was the referee. He sat in a chair a few blocks away, telling people to do various things.

“Ted and Noah win again! Can anyone rise to the challenge?!” He said in his best announcer voice, grinning as Noah, perched atop Ted’s shoulders, cheered. Cooper, who was just knocked off of Charlie, laughed and pretended to be mad, demanding a rematch. 

“Schlatt, join us!” Charlie shouted. “Cooper is bad at this game, I bet you could stay on!”

“Nah, I’m good out here.” They all booed, except Carson, who seemed to be okay with Schlatt staying out of the water.

Schlatt got up after a bit, stretching. He walked over to the bin of pool things, finding a good number of water guns. And a super soaker. He chuckled darkly.

No one noticed him as he went to the deep end of the pool, kneeling down warily, and filled up the gun with water. He went back to his chair and sat down, the gun across his lap as he went back to refereeing. Travis saw it first, his ears going back slightly. 

“What… what’s the gun for, Schlatt?” He asked, hiding behind Carson. They all turned to him, barely concealed smiles on their faces as they tried to go along with the bit. Cooper nudged Ted. Ted shook his head. Carson looked just as surprised as everyone else.

“It’s just there. Insurance. In case you decide that you don’t want to listen. You should know, my friends, that my word is now law. I have the gun, and I’m not afraid to use it,” Schlatt said, an evil grin finding its place on his face. A few of the guys were breathing out chuckles, while a few of them were able to stay in the character that they had made for the screen.

“He’s going off script!” Charlie said dramatically.

“I am.”

“It’s never been done before!” Charlie was hit with a stream of water straight in the chest. He pretended to die dramatically, falling back against Ted, who dropped him and let him sink.

“Now then, since we’ve established that, let the games begin!” Schlatt said. Carson had indeed put him in charge of transitioning from one thing to another, but not like this. This was just him, or at least, the Schlatt that he could be on screen. Jschlatt. A force of chaos to help bring in the needed comedy. “Cannonball contest! I wanna see a big splash! I wanna see people in balls! Who here likes balls?” He asked. They all cheered before they registered his question. “That’s kinda gay, guys,” he joked.

“Wait, what? No, man, that’s so weird.”

“It’s okay, I’m not judging. Anyway! We have a diving board! Everyone line up and give me your best cannonball!” Everyone lined up, chuckling. They were shocked at the sudden change, but they had had to create a persona before, too, and what better time to do it than on camera?

They all cannonballed, and in the end, Travis won, because none of the others could impress Schlatt with their ball form or their splash like Travis could. Not to mention, he had been looking like he was doubting himself a bit on his cannonball abilities, so Schlatt gave it to him a little bit. He did really well, though. Schlatt didn’t have to do much. 

After that, they took a bit of a break, and Carson went to go get the judges.

They all sat around, chatting.

“So, Schlatt, why aren’t you getting in? You have your swimsuit on, what’s stopping you?” Cooper asked.

“Yeah, everything is going swimmingly, dude, you should come in with us!” Charlie said. Noah groaned at the pun.

“No thanks. I’m good up here.” Schlatt smiled awkwardly. They all rolled their eyes and got up, trying to pull him to his hooves. He leaned back against the way they were pulling, shaking his head. “No- no thank you,” he insisted. 

Ted grabbed his other arm, helping Charlie and cooper, who had been trying to pull him before. They got him up and started pushing him towards the pool. He fought back harder, trying to duck under limbs, but there was always another arm who would grab him.

They tossed him into the deep end of the pool, and turned back towards the others laughing, stepping away from the pool. This pool was a lot deeper than he thought it was. He sank, his thrashing not being enough to get him to the surface, much less the edge of the pool. The weightless feeling surrounded him as he panicked, chest beginning to ache. It wanted air, it started hyperventilating, but there was only water to take in. He fought the water, but eventually stilled as the all-too familiar drowning feeling swallowed him.

  
  
  


Noah had been shocked when Schlatt pulled that one-eighty with the gun, but he supposed that was just part of making a name for himself. They had all done it. He himself had made his by appearing over people’s shoulders. They were convinced he could turn invisible for a while. He couldn’t.

It was odd, though, that Schlatt would willingly miss out on all the fun just because he had to record. He had even set up cameras to do it for him, he was just sitting! They tried to get him to come in, but he shook his head. The entire time he had been out here, he had looked a little pale, but Noah could pass that off easily on not going outside hardly ever. What was strange, though, was that Schlatt would zone out when he thought no one was watching him, stare into the water like if he didn’t keep an eye on it, it would try and get him like some sort of water SCP.

So they tossed him in the water, waving away his half-assed excuses about just not wanting to. He thrashed in the water, doing a bit where he was drowning probably only out of spite. He even pretended to sink.

Noah genuinely forgot that he was in the pool until Carson came back out with Wilbur and Josh like, two minutes later. Schlatt was always just so quiet, it was easy to forget he was in the room. Or lack thereof.

“Hey, guys, where’s Schlatt?” Carson asked, looking around the pool deck.

“Oh, probably drying off. He got in the pool,” Charlie said. Wilbur’s face visibly paled, along with Carson’s, and both of them looked at the pool. 

“Oh god, oh fuck,” Wilbur rushed to the side of the pool.

“What?” Ted asked.

“Schlatt can’t fucking swim!” Everyone’s eyes widened, only just now realizing the mistake that had been made.

“Cooper, you can swim the best, go fucking get him!” Carson said, panicking. Suddenly filled with dread, Noah looked over the side of the pool. Schlatt wasn’t moving. Cooper jumped in the pool, swimming down to the bottom. Everyone backed away as he resurfaced, Schlatt in tow, limp in his grasp. Wilbur grabbed the ram boy, hauling him out of the water. He checked him over, hands shaking. Schlatt was so still, it was honestly a little freaky. The man was quiet, sure, but never still. Always tapping his finger or his leg. It was easy to tell when something was up with him, Noah had noticed, by how much he was absentmindedly moving.

“He has a pulse, but like, just barely. He’s not breathing, I think he inhaled water or something.” His voice wavered.

“Here, I took a CPR class,” Cooper offered. Wilbur backed off, and Cooper knelt down and started trying to pump the water out of Schlatt’s lungs. “It’s not working…”

“Try and make him throw up. I think I read somewhere that that can help.” Ted said.

“How do I do that?” 

“I don’t know, punch him in the stomach?” Cooper looked up at Ted warily. He huffed, but drew his hand back and punched Schlatt in the gut. The ram’s body convulsed, and he sputtered, coughing up water. Cooper rolled him to his side, letting Schlatt cough and gasp for air. 

“What the fuck.” Schlatt coughed once he had enough air to speak. His voice was weak, but he was alive.

“Oh thank fuck,” Wilbur sighed. Schlatt saw him, and gave his friend a weak smile. “Don’t fucking do that again.”

“I know, I know.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you couldn’t swim?” Travis asked, looking relieved. Hell, everyone looked relieved. Wilbur glared at Schlatt.

“You told me you were going to tell them before today,” he stated.

“I meant to, but. You know why, come on, Wil.” Schlatt started to get up. Wilbur steadied him. “Just realized that the cameras are still rolling. I should put this in the video. ‘Fuckin idiot who can’t swim just fucking drowns’. That’s the title. I cut it off and make it look like I died. Pretend to be a ghost for the rest of the time I’m here. A get out of any event free card.”

“Don’t even.”

“Like, ‘Sorry, buddy, I can’t come to your party, I’m, uh, I’m fucking dead, see.’ Then just never come.”

“Schlatt. You almost fucking died, stop making jokes,” Wilbur said, flicking him.

“Well if I can’t make jokes about my own mortality, who the fuck can?” Schlatt sits back down in the chair he was in before, coughing lightly. 

Everyone gave Schlatt some space to recover, ducking inside for a moment.

“Is that why he freaked out on the first day he was here? Because he can’t swim?” Ted asked, putting pieces together.

“Yeah, more or less. So, please don’t treat him any different or anything, that’ll just make him feel bad,” Wilbur said. Everyone nodded. They weren’t planning on it. Everyone looked to be on the same page.

“Wait, more or less?” Noah asked, catching Wilbur there.

“Fine. So you guys cannot make fun of him for this, he knows it’s rather irrational, but he is like, actually terrified of water. To the point where I am surprised he even agreed to be out on the deck.”

“That’s…” Ted stopped himself from saying that it was stupid. “Really?”

“Is that why he always looks pale when he’s out there?” Noah asked.

“Observant, are we? Yeah.”

“Why water? It’s so much fun!” Cooper asked. The fish hybrid probably couldn’t see why anyone could be scared of water, since he practically lived in the pool during the summer, staying in until he looked like a raisin.

“He’s just had some really bad experiences with water. This… this isn’t the first time he’s almost drowned,” Wilbur explained. Carson snapped, turning to Wilbur.

“The floods! You guys keep mentioning it, is that what happened?” He asked. Wilbur nodded.

“And again, you guys should really just not mention it unless he does. But don’t push him in again,” he warned. They all shook their heads quickly. No, that would not be happening again.

They went back outside, and Schlatt was talking to one of the cameras.

“Speaking of the devils! Here they are now.”

  
  
  


Schlatt knew what they were talking about as soon as they all went inside. To drown (heh) out the whispers of judgement that his mind spoke, he grabbed one of the cameras and began explaining the next challenge.

“It’s a belly flop contest. The winner gets absolutely jack shit. Bragging rights, I suppose. This is just because we all want to see each other in pain,” Schlatt laughed. “So we brought my good friend Wilbur Soot and one of the guys’ friends out here to judge us. They each have a factor that they are doing. Flop and style. There are bonus points if you say something funny about this whole thing before you go, and even more bonus points if you tie it in with your flop. As for flop, the more pain, the more gain. We will start as soon as the guys get back out here.” As if on cue, they all came outside. “Speaking of the devils! Here they are now.”

Schlatt had set up some chairs of judgement, and he’d moved the cameras around a bit. He set the camera that he was talking into down, turning to face the guys.

“Okay. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we have one last event.” his voice still sounded a little rough, but he knew no one would call him out on it. Hopefully. He went through the rules with the guys, explained to Josh and Wilbur what they would be judging on. Josh was judging on style, and Wilbur was judging on flop.

The boys lined up, and the games began.

The first few were really good, Schlatt had to admit. As much as he did  _ not _ want to go anywhere near that water again, it did look really fun. He could just get someone on standby to pull him out. That was only if he could psyche himself up, though.

So far, Ted had scored the highest, both for his dramatic flair and willingness to accept pain. Travis was in last, having chickened out of the flop at the last second, pulling himself into something more ball shaped. They were all laughing at each other when they bellyflopped.

He decided just then. He was gonna do it if it killed him. It probably would, but he shunned the thought. Most of the guys had already gone, so if he wanted to do it, he needed to do it fast.

  
  
  


Cooper was cackling at Charlie, who had just gone. Wilbur and Josh were brutal in their judgements, adding to how funny it was. He felt a nudge, and he turned to see who it was. Schlatt was looking at him with a very serious face. Had he done something to upset him? Was this about earlier? Cooper got up and followed the rather stoic goat man to a place off-camera.

“What’s going on? If this is about earlier, I’m sorry-” Cooper started. Schlatt shook his head.

“No, no. Listen, you’re a good swimmer, right?” Schlatt asked quickly. Cooper was getting the feeling that he was anxious about something. “Great. As you might have noticed, I cannot swim for shit. Heh, I couldn’t swim if it was to save my own life.” Schlatt laughed at his own joke, while Cooper awkwardly chuckled along. “Anyway, I wanted to see if you were willing to pull me out.”

“What?” 

“I… listen, you can’t say anything to the others, but…” Schlatt shifted nervously on his feet. Well, hooves. “It’s more than just not being able to swim. I’m fucking terrified of water, dude. I know that it’s irrational, and like, ‘what did water ever do to you’, but I just am. But, but I want to be… not. Not scared of water...” There was a pause there, and something just behind Schlatt’s eyes that indicated that that wasn’t all that he wanted to not be scared of. Looking at the time that he had spent with Schlatt so far, he seemed jumpy around everyone. Constantly on edge. The pause just then indicated that Schlatt wanted to be not scared of them.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I’m gonna do a bellyflop when everyone else is done, and I’m probably gonna freak the fuck out as soon as I hit the water. Can you pull me out?” Cooper was shocked. Schlatt, out of the blue, decided that Cooper, who he had barely interacted with, was worthy of his trust.

“I, yes. Yeah, of course.”

“Okay. I’m putting my trust in you, dude. My life is in your hands. I will try my very best to not make things hard on you.” Schlatt very awkwardly patted him on the shoulder, and gestured back to the pool deck. Schlatt went and stood behind the judges, since they were seated by the diving board anyway. Cooper sat back down. He could see Schlatt taking deep breaths and flicking his ears, though he was sure that he didn’t notice he was doing it. The judges got finished basically roasting the hell out of Carson, who had apparently failed epically in his turn. Cooper couldn’t wait to see that in the video.

“Okay, was that everyone?” Josh asked.

“Not quite,” Cooper said. He and Schlatt nodded at each other, and the ram man emerged from behind the judges, going to stand on the diving board. Wilbur and Josh were shocked.

“No guts,” he bounced once, “No glory!” He bounced forward, planking and hitting the water completely flat. Cooper swam over and got him, helping him out of the water. Schlatt forced himself to calm down once they got to the edge, hauling himself out as fast as he could. He laid flat on his back, calming himself down. He started laughing.

“Ow?” 

“Why did you phrase it like a question?” Travis suddenly said, laughing his ass off with Schlatt. Everyone joined in.

“I don’t know!” Once everyone settled down, Josh and Wilbur gave their scores for him.

“So, Schlatt. From what I understand about you, you can’t swim for shit,” Josh said.

“Correct.”

“And you still did this anyway.”

“Yeah, I got Fish boy to, well, fish me out.” Josh nodded.

“Well, Schlatt, what can I say? You did very well, for someone who doesn’t like water. You basically bested it, and you did it with style. The bounce, what you said, the way you took it like a man, I gotta give full points. Ten outta ten,” Josh said. Schlatt grinned.

“Schlatt. You fucking scared me earlier, why would you do this, you know you can’t swim!” Wilbur chastised. Schlatt didn’t seem too bothered.

“Self-improvement, Wilbur. Just judge my flop,” he waved the subject away in a sort of ‘we can talk later’ voice. Wilbur rolled his eyes, getting the gist.

“Well, you actually had one of the best flops. You were completely flat, and it shows. It really shows, man, you are completely red.” Schlatt looked down at himself. He was still wearing his shirt, but every inch of skin you could see was red. The ram man let out a sharp bark of laughter. “So I guess you can have a ten from me, too.” Schlatt whooped, some competitive nature showing through. Cooper was glad. The more that the new guy participated, the more he came out of his shell. He was a little mistrustful of Schlatt at first, but he thinks that the others were, too. Not because of anything the guy had done, it was just how little of a read they could get on him.

“Let’s go!” Schlatt cheered loudly. “Get clapped, guys! You all got whooped by the one guy here who can’t even fucking swim!” 

“You mean the one guy who can’t schwim,” Ted laughed. Schlatt gave him the middle finger, but laughed nonetheless.

They finished up the games, and everyone started going inside. Schlatt stayed back to turn off the cameras, and Cooper went to go talk to him.

“Hey, Schlatt.”

“Hey, Cooper,” he said, not looking up from where he was putting the cameras away.

“I gotta say, this was more of your personality than I have ever seen,” Cooper chuckled.

“Been practising.”

“What do you mean?”

“That was Jschlatt. Not Schlatt. Schlatt talked to you, sure, to get you to pull me out, but in front of the camera, that was Jschlatt.” his voice was quiet, worn out from all the talking today. He had seemed like a completely different person. Pretty much everyone here had an online persona, with a few exceptions, where their presence on camera blended with the one off-camera. Cooper, for instance, was pretty similar in both, with few differences. Charlie was very similar. Ted had his moments where you could see the online one when he isn’t online.

“That makes sense. Still, you really pulled it off. Even after you almost died, dude.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot that happened today. Man, I was so out of it earlier,” he said, turning back to look at him with an amused smirk on his face.

“Yeah. Man, if that had happened to me, I would have gone back inside.”

“I was tempted to, but I have experience on my side. This ain’t my first rodeo,” Schlatt chuckled. Cooper halted.

“What do you mean?” It was Schlatt’s turn to freeze up.

“Oh, shit. Did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah, what do you mean this isn’t your first rodeo?” the horned man sighed.

“I mean it’s not my first rodeo, man. Connect the dots, I don't really feel like explaining it to you.”

“Well try.”

“No, Cooper. You seem smart, you can piece it together.”

“I want to be wrong.”

“Fine, I’ve almost drowned before, okay? There’s a fucking reason I’m afraid of water, dude,” Schlatt said through gritted teeth. “Was that what you wanted to hear? Or didn’t want to hear? I’m sure you can ask Wilbur for the details. He was there.”

“How old were you?”

“The time that Wilbur was there? Fourteen, I think.”

“The way you said that implies that there were other times, Schlatt.”

“I’m not gonna go into that.”

“Why? You can trust us, dude.”

“You pushed me in a pool when I made it very clear that I wanted to be not wet. You couldn’t have taken my word for it. Sure, I trusted you to get me out after the flop, but all in all, Cooper, I have lived with you guys for less than three weeks. That’s not very long, and you can probably ask Wilbur about my track record with trust issues,” Schlatt hissed at him. The conversation was over, Cooper could tell. He was only serving to aid Schlatt’s evident anger issues, which was not what he needed to be doing after a good day.

“I’m sorry,” he said, backing up. Schlatt sighed, trying to calm himself down. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“So am I, sorry. Maybe sometime, Cooper. I’m just not really ready to open up yet. I will, just on my own time, okay?” The fish hybrid nodded. That was fair enough.

Schlatt could take his time. It wasn’t any of their business, but curiosity was part of human nature. He couldn’t help it.

Cooper went back inside to let Schlatt finish up. He watched the man take everything back to his room to edit later. He emerged once again, taking a place on the couch next to Wilbur. The tall Brit elbowed him in the side and muttered something to him. Cooper turned away. It was none of his business. He had to remind his curiosity of that.

He was glad, however, that Schlatt was getting a bit more comfortable, finding his place among the lunch club ranks. From what Cooper had seen so far, Schlatt will make a great addition to the Lunch Club.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading! have a wonderful day!


	4. A toast to change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur and Schlatt finally hang out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW racist lady
> 
> she a bitch
> 
> thats not cool

Wilbur Soot-  _ wanna hang out today? _

Schlatt looked at his communicator. It was Wilbur. He hadn’t really gotten a good chance to catch up with his old friend yet. He shot a message back.

Jschlatt-  _ sure. threeish? _

Wilbur Soot-  _ see you then. _

Three o’clock. It was just after lunch now, so Schlatt had a little while to edit the footage they had from the summer games. He had already made some progress cutting down on the video, but there were several hours of footage to go through.

The long breaks he could just get rid of. Nothing happened, they were all offscreen. He watched it all the way through anyway, just to make sure there were no offscreen conversations that were picked up, but there weren’t any.

Since he was the one editing, he also took care of sponsors. That video’s sponsor was some coupon site, and boy, did Schlatt feel proud of himself for that one. He freeze framed the video and everything, and he threw in bits of humor here and there to make the viewers not just skip through it.

Schlatt got to the bit about the water gun, and had a bit of fun playing with filters and stuff. He put in the original, zoomed in, and slow motion of when he shot Charlie. 

Then came the part where he almost drowned. It was a long debate as to whether or not he should keep that in. He could decide later. If he did put it in, he would be sure to remove blame from the guys. They didn’t know, and it wasn’t like he gave them a good reason. Sure, he was a little salty that they didn’t listen to him, that they didn’t just let him be, but he was being extremely cryptic for no good reason.

He was just so used to people making fun of his inability to swim, that he just wouldn’t tell anyone. When he was in the detention center (he refused to call it an orphanage, normal orphanages don’t do what that place did), the other kids at least knew how to doggy paddle. Him, when he was faced with any given body of water, he would just freak the fuck out. Then in the labs, the scientists just fucking let him almost drown,  _ for science _ . Or their own amusement. How long can the ram boy go before he fucking dies. The only reason he survived when they actually wanted him dead was because of Wilbur.

Schlatt looked at the time when he snapped out of his mental tirade. It was almost three. Wow. Time flies when you’re stuck in your own mind. He realized that he didn’t know where he was supposed to meet his friend, so he messaged him.

Jschlatt-  _ hey, Wilbur, where are we meeting up again? _

Wilbur Soot-  _ oh I was going to drop by the lunch club house and steal you. _

Jschlatt-  _ hA ok _

Schlatt stood up, and rummaged around for his things. A glint caught his eye. The coins that he had brought with him were sitting on his windowsill. They were absolutely worthless in this economy, and every economy he had been a part of in the outside world. They used diamonds, not coins. But maybe he could find some use for them. He put a few in his pocket. They would be good to fiddle with, if nothing else. He pulled one back out and looked at it. It was gold, with a large S engraved on the side, with two lines through it. He flipped it over, and his reflection stared back at him. He supposed he and the coin had something in common. Both worthless, for now. He could change that. He flipped the coin, caught it, and slipped it back in his pocket.

There was a faint knock at the front door, and he threw his shoes on and jammed his Yankees cap over his horns before rushing out to meet Wilbur at the door before Charlie could. Charlie always answered the door with some sort of pun, so he tried to save Wilbur from that.

He got there just in time to push Charlie back by the face, laugh at him, and open the door, Charlie’s cackles behind him.

“Did you just push me back by my  _ face _ ?!” He laughed, still sitting on his ass.

“Shut up, we have guests. Hi Wilbur.”

“Hey, Schlatt. What was that?”

“Oh no need to worry, my friend. Shall we?” Schlatt offered, gesturing away from the house.

“We shall.” Schlatt told Charlie that he’d be out for awhile over his shoulder, and closed the door. He and Wilbur started walking around, talking.

“So how are you liking it here?” Wilbur asked.

“I like it a lot, though it’s not like I have many towns to compare it to.”

“Fair enough. Say, where were you before you came here? It’s like you dropped off the face of the map.”

“Uhh, I did. The flood map, anyway,” he chuckled. Wilbur gave an awkward smile.

“But really, where did you go?”

“Uhhm. Well, it’s sorta… I mean I didn’t have much say in the matter, they just sorta picked me up and put me there, so I mean-”

“Schlatt.”

“Right. Sorry. I went to this detention center. Well, it was more like an orphanage for ‘unruly children’,” he said, using heavy air quotes.

“What? Why? You were like, the most well-behaved child.”

“Well I was kinda out of it after I got swept away, and I freaked out when I woke up, so they sent me there, cause I accidentally headbutted someone or something. I don’t know.”

“Hmm. I’m sorry.”

“It’s whatever. Anyway, How’s Phil? And your brothers?”

“Oh, they’re good, I think. Phil’s gone and gotten himself stuck in Hardcore, but he’ll be fine. Tommy is off, exploring with his friend, Tubbo, who is like, an honorary brother at this point, I mean honestly. Techno is… techno.”

“I don’t think Techno ever really liked me.”

“Why’s that? He barely knows you.”

“I mean, you know him, he goes around saying that he was the ‘second worst thing to ever happen to those orphans’, I just don’t get the feeling that any interaction with him would go well,” he said, chewing at the inside of his cheek.

“Are you serious? How did you even hear about that?”

“Oh he made quite the name for himself in the System.”

“Did he really? Holy shit, that’s amazing.”

“Yeah. So do you ever wear anything but your yellow sweater?”

“Yes, other yellow sweaters. I have several,” Wilbur said proudly, puffing out his chest. Schlatt snickered. “And I thought you would wear your sweater, the blue one.”

“Oh, no. I actually accidentally left it at the center. They took it in my first year there, saying I needed to wear clothes that actually fit. They aren’t allowed to get rid of anything, though, I think.”

“So why haven’t you just gone and got it? It meant a lot to you, right? It was your uncle’s.”

“Yeah, it was like my comfort object. I’ve only ever had a few things that I took with me from my childhood, and that was my favorite. I also have the hat,” he said, pointing to his head, “but I haven’t gone back yet, no.”

“Why not?”

“You think I wanna go back alone? Hell no.”

“So why don’t I go back with you?”

“Cause I… you… you would do that?” He asked. Wilbur nodded seriously.

“We can go today. My only plan was talking to you, and we can do that on the way.”

“Really? Okay, I guess. Let’s go. How are we gonna get there?”

“The Nether Train,” Wilbur shrugged.

“There’s a train here?”

“Yeah. Come on.” Wilbur led them over to a nice looking train station. “So do you know approximately where this place was?”

“The middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere. I can show you on a map.” Wilbur found him a map, and he scanned over it. “Around this area,” he said, circling it with a nearby pen. Wilbur nodded and drew his finger to find any nearby station locations. He found the nearest one, and then went to compare it to the map for the Nether.

“Okay. I know where to go.”

“So what does this thing do?”

“It’s an alternative to disconnecting from this server and joining into another one. This is just easier so that you don’t have to ask the admins for permission.”

“Oh, huh.” They hopped on a train to where they wanted to go, and continued talking.

“So Phil’s in hardcore?”

“Yeah. Has been for the whole time I’ve been here. Three years.”

“Holy shit. Wow. That’s a long time in hardcore. The people at the lab stuck me in and I only lasted, like, two or three weeks, max,” he said, biting at his cheek again.

“They put you in hardcore? How old were you?” 

“I dunno, twelve? They didn’t keep time for me in there.”

“And that’s another thing, dude. They just left you in a room, occasionally doing tests on you, barely fed you, wouldn’t let you sleep, and the tests they would do were completely inhumane. How the fuck did they get away with that?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Wil, I’m not exactly completely human. They didn’t care if it was humane or not. It was  _ for science _ ,” he said, waving a hand in front of his face as if he were showing Wilbur some great new thing. “New topic.”

“Okay, I wanna know how you survived in hardcore that long. I tried it once and only lasted a couple days.”

“My fight or flight response was only flight back then.”

“You just ran? From everything? How did you die, then?”

“It wasn’t by drowning, that’s for sure.” They both chuckled a little bit. “Pillagers. Got a nasty scar on my calf from an arrow, then got gored by a ravager.” Wilbur winced.

“I thought you ran from everything?”

“They were fucking everywhere, man. And you try running with an arrow through your leg. The fuck was I supposed to do, I was twelve. How’d you die?”

“Creeper.”

“Oh. Nice.”

“Yup. Not my finest moment.”

“Hardcore is weird, dude. You ever notice that? Like, you go into this world that is generally only used for challenges, and you try to survive, but if you die, you’re fine. But if you die here, you’re not. Unless the server admin has a god complex, and alters the respawn rules, but, y‘know.”

“Yeah, I’m with you there,” Wilbur said. They talked for a bit longer, until finally they were there. They got off the train and began the hike up to the center. Schlatt was chewing on the inside of his cheek again. He looked back at Wilbur, who gave him a reassuring smile.

They made it to the center and stopped just outside.

“Maybe I should go in?” Schlatt said hesitantly. He didn’t want things to get ugly in front to Wilbur, just in case things did get ugly. Wilbur nodded, stepping back.

“You can take your time. I know it’s probably hard,” Wilbur said. It was hard. Part of the reason he didn’t come back to get his sweater was that he really,  _ really _ didn’t want to ever come back here.

“Yeah. Wait out here.”

“No problem. Place looks like a shithole.”

“Looks like one? It is a shithole.” They shared a laugh, but quickly quieted down. Schlatt took a deep breath, and walked in the building before he could back out.

“Hello, how can I- oh!” The lady at the desk said. She was the one that signed him out when he left. “Johnathan. You’re back.”

“It’s Schlatt,” he corrected. She nodded awkwardly.

“What do you need?”

“I left something here. When I left. I was wondering if I could get it back.”

“Oh, well now, Johnathan. There’s no guarantee that we kept all those things. You did leave, after all.”

“Could you check?”

“What I’m trying to imply, is that no. We are not allowed to disclose that information.”

“What the fuck. It’s a sweater. You’re not allowed to give an article of clothing back to its owner?”

“Well, if it’s just a sweater, then you can just get a new one.”

“No, thanks, I would like the one that I had, please.”

“I can’t do that, Johnathan.”

“It’s Schlatt. Can you try?” Schlatt could feel is blood pressure rising. He wanted to punch this lady so bad. He knew they could. She just wasn’t because she never liked him, anyway. He didn’t wanna prove her right, though. He wasn’t a bad person. Right?

“I’m sorry, Johnathan. I can’t.” Her thin lips were pursed, and there was a glare just behind her eyes. He took a deep breath.

“Fine. Okay. Thanks.”

“Bye, now,” she said in a cheery tone that didn’t at all match her eyes. He walked back out, a pit settling in his stomach. He felt… cold, almost. It was warm outside and he felt cold. It was a beautiful day, and he just felt cold.

“How’d it go?” Wilbur asked, a hopeful smile on his face that died as soon as he saw the frown on Schlatt’s.

“Eeh, it’s fine. Just a sweater, right?”

“Do you want me to go talk to her?”

“No. She’ll just say shit to you that you don’t want to hear, Wilbur. Bitch fucking hates hybrids, and only won’t say it to their faces. So it’s fine, Wilbur. It’s just some ratty old sweater that doesn’t fucking matter.” He started walking back, and Wilbur jogged to catch up. Schlatt’s blood was boiling. Who did that bitch think she was? It was a sweater, she couldn’t give him that?

The blood boiled into his throat, drawing out an enraged bleat. He stopped suddenly and punched the nearest tree, already feeling better. Wilbur looked at him strangely, something akin to either fear or surprise on his face.

“What, something on my face?” He snapped, and immediately felt bad. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“I just wasn’t expecting it. It’s okay, Schlatt,” Wilbur said, resting a hand on the ram’s shoulder. He flinched back, barely, but nothing else came. It felt… odd. Having someone touch him without having to also expect pain. He had just been used to that, that when Wilbur touched him it was foreign. Not unwelcome, but just foreign.

He still felt cold.

  
  
  
  


Wilbur knew something was up as soon as Schlatt walked into that building. He could see the woman at the desk. Her entire demeanour changed to an annoyed one as soon as she saw him. When he came back out, Wilbur tried to smile, but he already knew the outcome. Then Schlatt said it didn’t matter.

That sweater used to be the one thing that he could cling to when he was nervous. That sweater was like a security blanket for Schlatt, and he could actually see how different he was without it. He was more anxious, he chewed the inside of his cheeks a lot, he fiddled with his hands when speaking to people. A lot of things that now, he couldn’t hide because the one thing that he still had was gone.

So to hear Schlatt say that it didn’t matter, that it was just a sweater, that was a testament to just how fucking angry he was. Wilbur knew Schlatt didn’t mean any of that.

Schlatt bleated loudly and punched a tree after a few minutes of walking. Wilbur had been expecting something, he just didn’t expect it then.

He supposed that he had been staring in surprise at Schlatt for a bit too long when the ram snapped at him, too.

“What, something on my face?” He calmed down almost immediately, looking like he regretted that. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting it. It’s okay, Schlatt.” He put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, and tried to ignore the way that Schlatt flinched back, barely. He didn’t pull away, though.

Wilbur retracted his hand and they kept walking back towards the station.

Schlatt was dead silent the whole walk back. Once they were on the train, they sat in silence.

“Did the guys tell you I broke my knuckles a few weeks ago?” Schlatt asked, tone very conversational. It felt forced. Still, the subject of said conversation worried him, so he bit the hook.

“What? No, they didn’t.”

“I mean, it’s fixed now, but.” Schlatt was looking at his hands, extending them and curling them into a fist. The fist that he had punched the tree with looked a little bruised and scratched up, but it was fine otherwise.

“What happened?”

“Oh, Ted. He said something that really fucked me up, and so I got kinda angry and punched the stone wall outside.

“What did he say?”

“Oh, doesn’t matter now. But I, uh, I punched the wall so hard I broke my hand. Think I might have inherited dear old dad’s anger issues.” He gave a sarcastic smile.

“Schlatt, what happened up there?”

“I- nothing. I overreacted.”

“At what?”

“Wilbur.”

“Schlatt.”

“Fine. I know that they’re supposed to give us back our shit if we ask for it, but this bitch is so damn prejudiced against hybrids that she wouldn’t even bother to fucking check if it was even still there! And she kept calling me by my first name, no matter how many times I corrected her, no ma’am, it’s Schlatt, not fucking Johnathan, she wouldn’t fucking stop! Some people just do shit for the sole purpose of pissing me off, to get a rise outta me, and I’m so fucking sick of the fact that it works!”

“Schlatt…” Wilbur adjusted to sit next to his friend.

“And I know I pretend like I have it all together, like I’m under control, but I’m not, Wilbur! I’m just the fucking king of volcanoes! Bottle it up till I explode!” Schlatt’s voice cracked, barely. Wilbur put an arm around him, giving him a side hug. He couldn’t ignore how Schlatt flinched this time, and it saddened him how little he had been exposed to a kind touch such that he flinched away every time he tried.

“It’s okay to not be in control. Look at your friends. Half of them can’t control their emotions, but see? They’re okay. It’s okay to hide some things, sure. I understand if you even want to hide most things. But it is also healthy to show some emotions, too.” Schlatt had accepted the hug now, he was leaning into Wilbur’s side. Wilbur looked down at Schlatt’s face. He looked so sad, and felt so small in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” the hybrid said, just barely above a whisper. “You shouldn’t have to deal with me.”

“I would a thousand times over if it ensured that you were alright.” Wilbur meant it. He would, one hundred percent. He knows that Schlatt would do it too, if their roles were reversed. 

A thought popped into his head. He could still feel the map that they’d used to get to the orphanage in his pocket. Perhaps he could talk some sense into the staff there. It could even be a family project. If he recalled, Technoblade was generally always down for threatening assholes. It wouldn’t be too much trouble at all. Maybe they could even bring Tommy. Tommy had been a fan of the Lunch Club, and thought that the new guy who came in occasionally was just hilarious. Apparently, Schlatt had been putting a bit of a personal touch into the new videos.

But brainstorming could come later. For now, comforting Schlatt was his main goal. The ram was playing with a coin he pulled from seemingly nowhere.

“What’s that?” he asked

“Just a thing. Nothing to you, probably,” Schlatt murmured.

“What is it to you?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Yet?”

“I have big plans, Wilbur. Big plans. Secret plans,” he said, a smile in his voice.

“Yeah? So have I,” Wilbur returned to his thoughts on that building.

“For the coin?”

“No no. Just in general.”

“This feels like we should be making a toast, Wilbur.”

“Whatever to?”

“To plans. To change.”

“Hear hear.”


	5. All coins have some worth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schlatt goes out and makes a few diamonds using Schlattcoin. The guys watch disney

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing to add, not really
> 
> this is a bit of a filler chapter sorry :/
> 
> real chapter up soon i promise

Schlatt had been flipping this coin for the past three days, trying to decide how to turn himself around. What sort of name should he make for himself? He had already established himself in the pool party video as a force of chaos, unafraid of death. But what should he do? He couldn’t just be the force of chaos all the time, that was Ted’s thing. So what should he do?

In the time that he had spent not thinking about the coin, he had finished the video, dubbing it “The Lunchathon- Summer Games”. He ended up leaving the bit where he almost died out, but he had made his own channel and he’d been putting all the bloopers and funny things that didn’t make the cut there, so he put it up, there, titling it “The one where Schlatt almost fucking dies”. He thought it was funny, though that may be his morbid sense of humor talking. It would have been even funnier if he had actually died. Stick with the bit, right, Schlatt? Isn’t that the deal?

Deals. Schlatt looked down at his coin. He could make himself a businessman. If the coin had no worth now, he could make it have worth. He could have worth.

He got on his computer, looking up rules around cryptocurrencies. He knew that they were allowed on this server, but he could make this one good for content, if he just found the right-

“Aha!” He chuckled quietly. He could totally do this. He couldn’t do it in what he was wearing, though. No one would take him seriously. It was time to get some new clothes. He grabbed some diamonds, put them in his inventory, and then slipped out of the house while the others were watching TV.

He went down to the tailor’s, and found himself a professional-looking suit. He took it back to the house, hanging it up in his room. He went back out, into the living room, where the guys still were. They were scrolling through YouTube on the big screen, evidently waiting for him. They liked to watch the videos together, see what they did with them, see what they could do next time. Travis beckoned Schlatt over, and he sat in one of the unoccupied armchairs. Most of the guys fought over the couch, but he liked the chair.

“Okay, let’s watch the new video,” Carson said. He pulled it up, and everyone laughed at the title.

“Your fault for giving me free reign with the creative side, bitch,” Schlatt laughed when Carson looked at him funny. The blonde hit play, and the cold open was Charlie getting shot by the water gun, then it jumped into the intro immediately. Something funny with no context. Perfect. That even got Ted to very suddenly let out a bark of laughter, and he can usually fight it back. 

It then went into an explanation of the summer games by Carson, with the lunch club around him, elbowing each other. He managed to get through the intro without laughing, but soon lost it once he was done.

Then it launched into the chicken fights, where Schlatt had slipped in the sponsor. The video resumed with Noah and Ted pushing the competition back into the water. They cheered. Just offscreen you could see Schlatt walking over to the bin of stuff, and pulling out the gun. He’d zoomed in, made it really blurry, then put in some surprise sound effect he found on google. The video went back to normal as he went over and filled it up, but then switched to a camera that could see him better. He sat back down, said his bit when the others noticed him, and then played dramatic music when he shot Charlie.

Next up came the cannonballs, and he had put in a very subtle boing sound every time someone bounced on the diving board.

“Hey Schlatt, why the fuck did you meticulously add a spring sound _every single time_ the diving board is used?” Ted asked.

“Oh my god, there is.” Travis’ eyes widened comically.

“Why not?”

Schlatt had put in the part where they threw him in the pool, but cut it just after that.

“I’m not gonna lie, I thought you were gonna put it in,” Cooper said.

“Just you wait,” Schlatt said, not reassuring them in the slightest. Before Carson had put up the full screen, Schlatt saw the thumbnail of the video he had put it in, and it was next up. 

The video skipped ahead to the bellyflop contest, and each of their flops were shown from a few different angles. The whole time, Schlatt had actually had a waterproof camera under the water on a string, so he included the under shot of them hitting the water, as well.

He had also cut out the part in his flop where Cooper got him, because he had cut out most of the others getting out of the water, too, and it wouldn’t go amiss. 

Schlatt was very careful in his editing, more out of a self-conscious thing than convenience. He let Josh explain that Schlatt couldn’t swim, but cut out the bit where Wilbur yelled at him for scaring him.

“I’m not gonna lie, man, this is really well done,” Carson said when the video was done. “We all thought you were gonna put in the bit where you drowned. Or at least put it somewhere.”

“Didn’t I?” He smirked at them. The auto play had queued up the next video, and it was his. Their attention was drawn to the screen, and they all started laughing.

“You didn’t! You have your own channel?!”

“Bitch, I made several.” The video started playing. 

“‘The one where Schlatt almost fucking dies’, is that seriously your title?” Noah laughed. Schlatt had made it as comedic as possible, putting in sound effects and filters. When it got to the part where he sank to the bottom, it started fading to black and in big red letters, ‘You Died’ appeared across the screen, before everything went to black.

“Are you seriously gonna just cut it off there- oh.” Copper cut himself off when it jumped to the fish hybrid jumping in to get him.

“So how did you like the video?” Schlatt asked, holding back giggles.

“Very funny, good job,” Charlie laughed.

“Cool, cool. Listen, guys, I have got a date with destiny, so I’m gonna dip.” Schlatt went back to his room, changing into his new suit. He looked at himself in the mirror, and grinned. He actually felt really good in the suit. Oh-so-successful businessman, that’s was he could be.

Self-esteem boosted, he put on his signature timbs and left his room.

“Ooh, fancy suit! Have you actually got a date? Yeaaah, get it!” Travis said, drawing attention to him.

“I can almost promise you that that is not what is happening.”

“What’s his name?” Cooper laughed.

“Ha ha. Very funny. Goodbye,” Schlatt said, leaving the house before they could say anything else.

He walked around, looking for someone to try and talk into buying his brand-new cryptocurrency. He stopped, thinking he should actually record this.

He set up his communicator to record, and made up an intro.

“I got some new clothes, baby! I am ready to go out and introduce people to my new cryptocurrency, Schlattcoin!” He held up one of the coins for the camera to see. He walked into town, looking around. He was having second thoughts, anxiety boiling in his stomach. Nevertheless, he put on a smile and approached someone.

“Hey there! My name is Jschlatt! Nice to meet you,” he said to the person.

“Hey, I’m Connor. Nice suit.”

“Thank you. Say, you look like a smart young man, have you heard of cryptocurrencies?”

“Isn’t that the currency that gains value as time progresses?”

“It sure is. I was wondering if you would like to invest in my new cryptocurrency, Schlattcoin. You pay twenty diamonds for this here coin,” he explained, showing off the coin, “and then you wait a bit. And the value only grows, I mean, it’s a win situation.”

“Hmm. I don’t know,” Connor said. Someone else approached them.

“Hey, did I hear you guys talking about cryptocurrencies?” The new guy said.

“Yeah, we are. I’m Jschlatt, by the way.”

“I’m Asaii.”

“Hey, Asaii. I’ve made a new cryptocurrency. You pay twenty diamonds, and when the coin is ready for you to have, I will give it to you.”

“It’s twenty diamonds?”

“Yeah, and the value only grows.”

“So if I were to give you a hundred and twenty diamonds, then what?”

“Then, then I would give you six coins.”

“Well, Jschlatt, I am all for a new cryptocurrency. Here is one hundred and twenty diamonds, I’m sold.” That worked?

“Alright, awesome, thank you for your business!” Schlatt handed him six Schlattcoins in exchange for the diamonds. Asaii grinned and left, and Schlatt turned back toward Connor. “Whaddya think?”

“I’ll buy one,” he said hesitantly.

“Great! You won’t regret this.” Connor handed him twenty diamonds, and Schlatt handed him a coin.

“Thanks?”

“No no, thank you. Pleasure doing business with you.” Connor left, and Schlatt suppressed a giggle. He turned and walked away.

“Hey, Jschlatt, wait!” Connor had changed his mind, apparently. “What even is this?”

“It’s a cryptocurrency.”

“No, but I mean, where are these coins from? I’ve never seen them before.”

“They are coins from a far off land. That’s how you know they’re legit, Connor, is because they’re rare.”

“Then why do you have them?”

“They are not rare to me.”

“Are you always this cryptic?”

“Yup! Just me, a cryptic, selling crypto. Have a nice day!”

“Wait, so, if they aren’t rare to you, then why should they be rare to me? How will this help the economy if you have an unidentified supply of them?”

“Well, I was gonna break it to you nicely, but they are absolutely worthless. You bought a worthless coin. But the thing about that is, it that now, you get to make it not worthless. You just made that worthless coin worth twenty diamonds. Congratulations,” Schlatt said, baring his teeth in a grin.

“You know, you are surprisingly convincing for someone who barely anyone knows. Why?”

“I’ll level with you, I’ve been recording this whole time. This is solely for content.”

“Wait, so there’s not actually a cryptocurrency?”

“No. It was an exit scam. That is actually a worthless coin. Just try getting rid of it. You can’t. You got scammed. You’ve been boofed.”

“Can I keep the coin?” Connor asked.

“What? That’s your first question? You’re ruining the bit!”

“Oh, sorry. Back up, I’ll help this time.”

“You got scammed. You’ve been boofed,” Schlatt repeated, though a little half-assed this time.

“You bitch.”

“Ok that’s good.”

“So can I keep the coin?”

“Yeah, man, you paid for it. What are you gonna do with it?”

“I have a coin collection.”

“Ahh. The one place where it wouldn’t be worthless.”

“Exactly. So anyway, have a nice day!” Connor said, actually leaving this time. Schlatt started walking back to the house, flipping a coin and feeling good. He turned off the camera as he got to the door. The guys immediately asked how the date went.

“Guys, it wasn’t a fucking date,” Schlatt said, rubbing at his forehead.

“It wasn’t? Then what’s with the fancy clothes?” Noah asked.

“You gotta wait for the next video to come out,” he grinned. He ducked into his room to change. He came back out just Schlatt, as he should be. The boys were arguing over what movie to watch. There were half on each side, three on some movie from something called a Disney and three on some slasher film that Schlatt’s dad had probably made him watch at some point. Probably why he was completely unaffected by horror films. He just thought they were funny.

“Schlatt! You gotta break the tie, man. Mulan or Halloween?” Travis asked, on the side for Mulan with Charlie and Carson. Ted, Noah, and Cooper cheered for Halloween.

“Halloween is that one with the guy in the mask, right? That slasher film?”

“Yeah! Pick that one,” Cooper cheered.”

“And what the fuck is Mulan about?” Everyone paused. The reason that they were so divided was because they had all seen Mulan, apparently. Schlatt had no idea what the fuck a Mulan was.

“You haven’t seen Mulan? It’s the best Disney movie!” Charlie wailed.

“Ok well now that’s debatable,” Noah said, “but it is up there.”

“And what is Disney, you guys have mentioned it like, three times,” Schlatt rolled his eyes.

“What?! You don’t know what Disney is? What even was your childhood, man? This is a travesty!” Charlie said loudly. Everyone seemed to be on the same page, now. They were gonna make Schlatt watch the Mulan, weren’t they?

“Man, that is a long story for another time.”

“Oh, right,” Ted said. He remembered the talk they had on the porch, the night Ted angered him at the bar. He had kind of leaked his past a little, and Ted hadn’t told anyone, by the looks of things. “So anyway. Mulan or Halloween?” Everyone changed their vote to say Mulan, just so they could make Schlatt watch it. They forced him to sit on the couch instead of his normal chair. He was squished between Cooper and Noah, and someone booted up the movie.

Mulan was surprisingly good, for a children’s movie. After that, they ended up putting on Halloween, because some of them still wanted to watch it, and Schlatt felt himself getting tired. 

  
  
  


Cooper was shocked when Schlatt said he hadn’t ever seen Mulan, but brushed it off. Maybe he hadn’t had much access to television where he grew up. After the movie ended, they put on Halloween, a classic, and settled in for a little late-night horror. About twenty or thirty minutes in, he looked over to see Schlatt passed out beside him, his head leaning on the back of the couch.

He looked peaceful, but Cooper blinked and suddenly they were both in the water, and Schlatt was too limp against him. He blinked back, and found himself looking closely to see if the man was breathing or not. The ram grumbled something in his sleep, and Cooper relaxed. Noah noticed him staring at the ram.

“What?” he whispered.

“Nothing. I’ll tell you later.”

“Is it about Saturday?” Cooper nodded. “I know. He looks too still.” Maybe that was it. Schlatt had ADHD or something, or he was always nervous, because he was always shaking his leg, tapping his foot or fingers, chewing at the inside of his cheek. When he was almost perfectly still, there was something he was thinking hard about. 

Noah went back to watching the movie, and Cooper tried to ignore the urge to wake Schlatt up, just so that he would go back to his mindless tapping. He didn’t, though. Schlatt hardly slept, or at least slept well, by the looks of it. Almost everyone in the house knew that he had nightmares, they could all hear it. He never spoke of it, and they never brought it up.

He spoke in his sleep, too. Whenever he tried to take a nap and ended up sleeping through a whole day, Cooper could hear the ram mumbling in his sleep through the door, saying things that he couldn’t piece together in any logical sentence.

Things about water, coats, and something about salt were frequent flyers in Schlatt’s dreams, evidently. It wasn’t like any of them sat outside his door, listening, but when he said the things at full volume occasionally, it was hard to ignore. Still no one said anything, and oddly enough, it never happened at night, only during the day. 

Schlatt shifted in his sleep, and Cooper refocused on the movie.

When it was over, they debated on whether or not they should wake Schlatt up. They decided that yes, they should, he would be happier in his own room. So they sent Travis to go wake him up.

“Psst. Schlatt. The movie’s over,” Travis said. Nothing. He tried gently shaking the man’s shoulder. Nothing. Poking him? Nope. Poking his face? Still nothing. But when Travis so much as rested a hand on one of the Ram’s horns, his red eyes snapped open, flicking up to where Travis was. Travis backed up, he hadn’t been expecting that. Schlatt relaxed when he saw that it was just them.

“What?” He asked, voice a little hoarse.

“You fell asleep, dude, we thought you’d be happier in your room,” Carson said. 

“Oh. Sorry. Good night then.” Schlatt left the room.

“Who thinks he’s not gonna go back to sleep?” Noah asked. Everyone raised their hands, chuckling.

At one point, they all crept by the ram hybrid’s room, and Noah took a peek inside, and withdrew, shaking his head and holding back laughter. Schlatt was indeed still awake.

“What’s he doing?” Cooper asked.

“Editing something. It looked like something for his channel.”

“Well, good on him for doing something on his own. Next thing you know, he’ll be an official Lunch Club member,” Carson chuckled. They moved on from Schlatt’s room, and eventually dispersed to their own rooms.


	6. I try and I try but I can't feel a thing except pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hoOh boy, this one is a doozy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for non-consensual drug use  
> ya boi got roofied

It was Halloween. The Lunch Club had been planning on going to one of their friend’s house, since they were throwing a huge Halloween party. Schlatt had tried getting out of it, he really had. He didn’t know anyone else, he didn’t want to interrupt any of the conversations that they might have, etc. His housemates weren’t having any of it. Apparently, he was going, that was final.

So that was how he found himself at some dude’s house party, sitting at the kitchen counter, sipping at some alcoholic drink that he couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of. All of his friends had dispersed upon arrival, either finding old friends or pretty people to talk to. So Schlatt went to find somewhere to sit, which ended up being the kitchen counter.

He tuned in on a conversation that a couple of girls were having, and he looked over. The girls were pretty, sure, and one in particular caught his eye. Her hair was dyed purple, and she had rather extravagant makeup on, but he wouldn’t ever go and talk to her. He wasn’t that kind of person. So he goes back to nursing his drink and people watching.

After another ten minutes of absolutely nothing happening, he watches as the girl with the purple hair puts her drink down to talk more animatedly at her friend. Some creep immediately reached across the table and put a pill-looking thing in her drink. It dissolved almost immediately. Schlatt made eye contact with the guy, and the guy winked at him.

Schlatt winked back rather sardonically and stood up from his place at the counter. He swallowed his anxiety and tapped the girl on the shoulder just as she was about to take a drink from her cup.

She looked him up and down before answering with a sneer.

“I’m not available,” she smirked at her friend.

“I’m not here for that.” Schlatt frowned. “I just thought you’d like to know-”

“What?” Her accent was heavy. He wondered where she was from.

“That guy put something in your drink.” He pointed at the creep, who was now glaring at him with malice. The girl with the purple hair stared wide-eyed at the guy, her drink, her friend, then back at Schlatt.

“I… oh my god, thank you!”

“Yeah.” He sat back down at his place at the kitchen counter. The girls watched their drinks much closer now, and the creep had disappeared from view.

Nothing else happened for a good hour. He was beginning to get bored of people watching, so he poured himself another drink. He knew his friends wouldn’t want to go yet, and he would just be bothering them if he asked to leave.

He shot back the rest of his drink, tasting a little bit of it on the way down. He couldn’t place it, but it just… tasted funny. Maybe he grabbed a different brand of the same shit he’d been drinking or something. He put it to the back of his mind until a few minutes later when he stood up to stretch.

The world spun. The music became too loud and everything felt fuzzy at the edges. Something wasn’t right here. He sluggishly started scanning the crowd for his friends, when he saw that guy who tried to drug that girl out of the corner of his eye, grinning darkly at him. He evidently wasn’t happy with him.

The creep stood up and began walking towards him, and Schlatt tried to remain calm as he walked away, but in his mind, the oncoming panic made everything spin faster and faster.

There! He saw Ted talking to some girl, thanks mostly to the man’s obscene height. He tried to beeline it to him, but he knew that it was more like a sloppy walk. He looked back and the guy was still following him, though he was held up by a passing group of people. When Schlatt turned away from him, he could feel the stare on his back.

The music was pounding in his head, giving him a migraine. He felt like the ground was shaking under his feet, and he finally reached Ted.

  
  
  


Ted had been having a wonderful night. He had met this girl, her name was Madi, and she liked making music. They were having a deep conversation when Ted felt a tug on his sleeve. He jerked his arm away and continued talking, assuming it was an accident made by some drunk.

Then it happened again, more insistently. He whipped around, and saw Schlatt there. He was probably going to ask when they were leaving. The guy hadn’t been too keen on coming.

“No, Schlagg, we can’t leave now.” He nudged him away as he turned back to Madi, and heard the guy stumble and fall over. A bit too easy. Then the tug was back on his sleeve.

“Ted, Ted I think something is wrong, I- oh fuck.” At Schlatt’s voice, Ted turned around. The ram had sounded rather panicked, and when he turned he didn’t like what he saw. Some guy was trying to tug at Schlatt’s arm, and Schlatt looked very uncomfortable.

“Come on, babe, don’t bother these guys, they’re talking.” The guy said. What the fuck? Schlatt wormed his way out of the guy’s grasp and hid behind Ted and Madi, who let him. “I’m so sorry about my boyfriend. Come _on_ , babe.” The guy growled the last bit, trying to grab at Schlatt again. The ram hybrid smacked the guy’s hand away.

“Hey, how long have you guys been together? Matter of curiosity,” Ted said.

“Oh, a few months now. Come on, babe, quit bothering them,” the guy said, a little smile with too much ill intent behind it. Ted heard Schlatt quietly curse behind him.

“Really? Because he’s been my housemate for a few months, too, and he made no mention of you.” The man’s face paled.

“Oh fuck, I’m sorry. It was a joke. Bye!” He dipped, disappearing into the crowd. Ted turned back to Schlatt, who looked pale and shaky.

“You good, man?”

“Something’s wrong, I think- I think someone put something in my drink, I can’t-” Schlatt’s eyes were hazy, and judging by how that guy had been trying to pull Schlatt away from everything, he would believe it.

“Hey, Madi, I’m sorry, I’ve gotta take care of him,” he apologized.

“It’s okay, I totally get it. Here, lemme see your hand,” she said. She pulled out a sharpie and wrote her number on his hand, then looked back up at him with a grin. She waved goodbye, and left. He looked back at Schlatt, who was leaning against a wall, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his ears.

“Schlatt, are you okay? We gotta get you home, alright?” The ram nodded dully. Ted scanned the crowd. Over by the kitchen, he saw Charlie. He waved to get his attention, and once he had it, he beckoned him over hurriedly. Charlie took his sweet time, until he saw Schlatt, then he was a bit faster.

“Holy shit, what happened? Is he okay?” Charlie yelled over the music.

“I don’t think so, someone put something in his drink.”

“Oh shit, oh fuck. What should we do?”

“I’m gonna take him home, you get the others and either come home or just let them know that we’re gone.” Charlie nodded and helped Ted get Schlatt more upright. He saw them to the front door before going on his crusade of finding the others.

Schlatt leaned heavily on Ted, his horns pressing uncomfortably against his side.

“Come on, Schlagg. We gotta get you home.” They started walking, Ted halfway dragging the ram hybrid behind him as he stumbled along.

They finally got home, and Ted gave Schlatt an option between his room, the chair, or the couch. He chose the chair, since he wasn’t sure how much the guy gave him, but he murmured that it felt like more than one. Ted agreed that they might wanna keep an eye on him, so Schlatt was settled down in his chair with a glass of water on the side table and a waste bucket on the other side. He had thrown up once already on the way back, so Ted thought it was better safe than sorry.

“It’s so fucking quiet…” Schlatt whispered.

“I thought you didn’t like the noise.”

“At the party. It was too loud. Now it’s too quiet.” The hybrid’s words were slurred, and he was staring off into a point in space where there was nothing if Ted tried to follow his gaze.

“You want some headphones?”

“...sure.” Ted found a pair of headphones and gave them to the ram, who put them in his ears, the furry ears flicking once or twice as soon as they were in. He fiddled with his phone for a bit before scowling and holding it out for Ted to use. Ted scrolled through Schlatt’s music for a moment, before asking if Schlatt had any preferences.

“No words. I have a game soundtrack playlist, do that one.” Ted clicked it for him and handed back the phone. Schlatt finally blinked, breaking his gaze with the nothing on the wall. He leaned his head back, letting it fall against the headrest as he stared at the ceiling.

The guys got back, and when they opened the door, Carson immediately laughed loudly, making Schlatt jump and groan in pain. Ted shushed them, and they all filtered in.

“So what happened?” Noah asked lowly.

“Some guy put some shit in his cup, then kept following him around the party until he found me, then got scared and fucked off,” Ted explained quietly. Travis went up to Schlatt.

“You okay, Schlatt?”

“Sure,” he replied, a small smile on his face that was clearly only there to make the dog hybrid feel better.

They settled into the couch and put on a movie. Schlatt watched halfheartedly, ears flicking whenever there would be a loud sound. He was fighting to stay awake, Ted could tell. 

Eventually they turned the movie off and went into the next room.

“He’s so still. It’s unsettling,” Cooper said. Ted raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t noticed before.

“Yeah, I hadn’t really noticed before,” he said.

“It’s hard not to, for me.”

“How do you mean?”

“I pulled him out of the water that one time, Ted,” ohh, right, “and he was so limp and pale and still, and he almost looks like that now, only he’s dry and he’s breathing.” Carson put a hand on Cooper’s shoulder.

“You okay, dude?” the blonde asked. Cooper nodded.

“Yeah, it’s just…”

“Worry.”

“Yeah.”

  
  
  


Schlatt felt apart from his own mind. His head felt fuzzy and it felt like it was being repeatedly slammed into a wall. Then there would be a few moments of silence from the constant banging, just so that a few stray piano notes from his music could echo around his head, bouncing around like a 2010s dvd logo. 

His body hurt, too, he noticed. Anything that he touched would just be overwhelmed with a sense of hypersensitivity, so eventually he just had to stop touching things unless he needed to. He let his arms fall onto the armrests and waited for the weird almost-pain to stop.

Another thing he couldn’t help but notice was that he was too cold and too hot at the same time. It was mostly cold, but then there would be a flash of burning heat in the small of his back and in his neck and head that would feel like it was scorching him. And then there would be the numbing cold, back again, back to stay.

The guys had put on a movie, but everything was blurry and the sounds were like some weird acid trip, unintelligible and reverberated in his head at the same time. Every line would start fuzzy, like speaking through cotton, but then it would start again halfway through, booming in his ears.

And the sound effects were just the worst. Some of them felt like they were trying to give him a seizure, some of them were just muffled, and some of them rang in his ears like the bell of a church, if he were to stand next to it.

And then the movie was turned off, and he couldn’t deny that he was glad that it was. Now there was just a stuffy silence in his head, occasionally feeling the rushing thump of his own heartbeat in his ears.

Another wave of cold crashed down his back, but he did not shiver. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the music. He was listening to a game soundtrack, he thinks. What was it from, what scene in the game?

Someone touched his shoulder, and he opened his eyes.

“You doing okay?” Charlie asked. His normal optimistic nature had been replaced by worry. Schlatt felt a pit of shame in his gut for worrying them. He didn’t deserve all the worry.

“I’m fine.” Words felt foreign on his tongue.

“Tired?”

“Yeah, sorta.”

“You want to go to sleep?”

“No.”

“Why not? You can sleep this off.”

“Because I’ve been high before, and this just feels… worse.”

“So you could sleep it off.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

  
  
  


Charlie was confused. Why didn’t Schlatt want to sleep?

“Why not?” He asked the ram hybrid, who flicked his eyes up to meet his for a second before looking away.

“... I guess… I’m scared,” he whispered. Charlie frowned.

“Of what?”

“It feels worse. I don’t know how much I had.”

“So why are you afraid to sleep?”

“I’m afraid I won’t wake up,” he muttered. Charlie’s heart sank. Schlatt must be feeling really shitty.

“Why?”

“I can feel my heart rate, man, it’s so slow. Imagine at a resting pace, I don’t want it to just fucking _stop…_ here, feel it,” he muttered, letting his head fall back again. Charlie felt his pulse point, and it was indeed horribly slow. He patted the ram’s arm, and noticed how cold his skin was.

“Jesus, man, you’re fucking freezing.”

“I’m always cold, what’s new.”

“Do you want a blanket? Or move to a different chair? You might be more comfortable.” Schlatt appeared to zone out again, or maybe he was just thinking. After a few minutes of complete silence, Schlatt nodded. Charlie moved for him to get up, and Schlatt pushed himself up. He grimaced and almost fell back, but Charlie stabilized him and helped him over to the couch. Charlie moved the waste bin and the water closer to the ram, who had curled up on the couch.

“I’ll be right back.” Charlie rejoined the rest of the group.

“How’s he doing?” Noah asked.

“Not good, to be honest. He said he’s cold.”

“Oh, yeah, he was like, freezing when I first got him home. Like, cold to the touch,” Ted said, nodding at what Charlie had said.

“He say anything else?” Carson asked.

“Yeah, he’s scared to fall asleep.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t know how much the guy gave him, he’s scared he won’t wake up.”

“Oh, shit. I’d be scared, too.”

“Dude, I’m actually worried. His heart rate was really slow.”

“Should we take him to the doctor?”

“What are they gonna do?”

“Make sure he doesn’t die.”

“Let’s ask him,” Charlie offered. The group went into the room that Schlatt was in. He was still in a little ball on the couch, leaning against the armrest.

“Hey,” he mumbled.

“Hey, Schlatt. So, we were wondering if you wanted to just go to the doctor, since they could do a better job of making sure you’re okay,” Carson said. Schlatt’s face paled impossibly more as he shook his head.

“No, I’m fine. Really. Just have to ride it out.”

“You sure?” The ram nodded. “Ok then. How about one of us stays with you, make sure you’re alright, and we can take turns. Okay?” Another nod.

“I can go first,” Ted offered. The guys nodded.

“I sorta meant in a bit, I don’t think I’m done in here quite yet.”

Some of the guys sat back down, playing on their phones or whatever they did to keep themselves occupied.

There was a knock at the door. Charlie stood, stretching. He opened the door. A very pretty girl with purple hair stood on the porch.

“Hello. Does someone with, like, goat horns live here?” She asked.

“Uhh, yeah. Why?”

“I wanted to talk to him. Can I come in?”

“Uhh, I guess. Come on in, but gimme one sec, I’ll let him know you’re here.” He ducked back into the room Schlatt and the others were in. “Hey, Schlatt, some girl is here to see you.”

“Go ahead and let her in.” The girl came in, waving.

“Hey. My name is Minx, you helped me out at the party?” Schlatt nodded dully at Minx’s words. “I wanted to say thank you, but you sorta disappeared before I got the chance.”

“It’s no problem. My name is Schlatt, by the way,” he said. He sounded very tired. She gave him a smile and turned back to the others, jerking her head to the side a bit, an indication of a private talk.

“What the hell happened to him? He was fine at the party.”

“Some asshole put a roofie in his drink.” Ted explained.

“A few, by the looks of it.”

“So how did he ‘help you out’?”

“Oh, some creep, probably the same guy, tried to roofie me, but Schlatt warned me about it and the guy left me and my friend alone.”

“Yeah, it probably was the same guy. He kept following Schlatt around the party, trying to pull him away. Tall guy, blue shirt?”

“That’s the guy, alright.”

“Hmm. Schlatt’s kinda out of it right now, but we can tell him you came by when he’s back in his right mind.”

“Oh, okay. Give him my number, will you?” She wrote it on a piece of paper, handed it to one of them, and left. 

  
  
  


Once everyone went to bed, There was just Schlatt and Ted in a room, sitting on opposite sides of the couch. Somehow, Schlatt had ended up with literally every pillow in the room and someone had made a little nest for him. Probably Travis. The couch was L shaped, and he was in the corner, so he had enough room, but it was still pretty funny to see. Schlatt was curled up on his side in the middle of his nest, holding a pillow to his chest as he fought to stay awake.

Ted looked over at him.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked.

“What? Oh. Uhh. The fucking, um. The fucking coins.”

“Coins?”

“Yeah, I made a fucken cryptocurrency outta those stupid coins I brought with me.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, for a video. It was a total joke, but fucking, uhh, oh whassis name…? Asaii. He bought like, six of ‘em.”

“Where did you even get them? We don’t mint coins here, we use diamonds.”

“I brought them with me. From a land far, far away.”

“Where?”

“A land far far away, Ted, are you listening?” Schlatt leaned his head up to look at him with a playful glare.

“What was this place to you?” Ted asked, continuing the bit.

“In my early years, my home.” Ted looked back at Schlatt when he spoke. He had been expecting a lie, but this seemed true. “In my later years, my hell. One of ‘em, at least.”

“One of them? How do you mean?”

“I had multiple hells. Just as I escaped from one of them, another would take its place. If I’m honest, I’m still waiting on the catch in this place,” Schlatt slurred.

“What? Why?”

“It’s too good to be true. Life has had it out to get me since I was six, man, why stop now?” Ted looked at Schlatt with a certain sense of bewilderment. The ram was talking about this so casually, like it was a walk in the park. Of course, the drugs in his system may have helped ease the cautious anxiety and fear that surrounded Schlatt wherever he went.

“What happened to you? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Lotta shit. ‘M not ready to talk about it. Wrong type of drugs for that shit. Need the chill pills for that shit, this is just pain.” Ted blinked.

“You in a lotta pain?”

“Oh yeah. Everything is fuzzy, empty, too quiet and too loud at the same time. I’m too cold and too hot, I feel numb and hypersensitive to everything, it’s nauseating. And my mind is weird, like it helps fuck-all in telling my body what makes sense.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, you’re never sorry, don’t start on my account.” Schlatt gave a half-hearted laugh at that. He had gone back to staring at the ceiling.

“Why don’t you try sleeping? I’ll wake you up if you stop breathing or anything.”

“I can try… I’m tired anyway. Staying awake by sheer will at this point. You have a blanket I could borrow? Or can you get mine from my room?” Ted nodded and got the blanket for him. He handed it to Schlatt, helping him sort out the blanket. Ted sat back down on the couch and pulled his phone out as Schlatt finally let himself try to fall asleep. Ted would look up occasionally, checking in on the ram, making sure he was still breathing.

Schlatt shifted in his sleep, mumbling something. His arm fell to the side of his head, and Ted frowned when he saw a bunch of marks littering his wrists. Most looked old, but a few of them looked newer than the rest, a pinkish tinge still surrounding them. None looked very new, though, which was the only upside. 

Schlatt shifted again, and more of his arms were revealed. There were long jagged marks all down his arms, which Ted couldn’t quite place where they’d be from. There were other various scars that looked very old, but he doubted Schlatt would tell him if he asked before Schlatt brought it up himself. 

Ted’s heart was in his stomach. Schlatt had sort of clued him in, however unintentionally, that night on the porch. He only never brought it up because he got the feeling that Schlatt wouldn’t appreciate him talking about it in front of the others, and they were never really alone to talk about it.

The ram frowned in his sleep, his hands twitching. The frown turned into a grimace, and soon his breathing got heavier.

Ted turned off his phone to debate if he should wake up the hybrid, when very suddenly, his eyes shot open and he sat up, letting out a loud bleat of a yell. Ted went to his side to try and calm him down, but as soon as he touched the man’s shoulder, he was pushed away by another terrified bleat.

The rest of the Lunch Club came running in, some rather lethargically, at the noise. Schlatt had made himself very small, shaking occasionally. His nails pressed into his arms, clawing at the skin, and Ted understood what the jagged scars were from. Travis came forward from the group and tried to calm Schlatt down as well, to no avail.

Noah sat down on the couch beside the ram, and started softly asking him questions.

“Schlatt, can you hear me?” There was a pause, and a stutter in the shaking, but the ram nodded shakily. “Do you know where you are?” Schlatt peeked around the room, seeming to calm down a bit once he recognized his surroundings, the wild look in his eyes dying out. He nodded again. “Can you try and even out your breathing?” Schlatt took deep, hollow breaths that seemed to do jack shit, the air not actually reaching his lungs. If anything he just seemed to panic more at the air not working right, and Ted remembered that Schlatt was still high off his shit, so things not working properly might come as a bit of a shock to him. He was still scratching at his arms, and Noah finally just grabbed his wrists. Schlatt fought back a little bit before eventually just letting Noah do what he needed to in order to get Schlatt to calm down. He demonstrated breathing to the ram, and had him follow it, and eventually Schlatt was breathing normally again, passively staring at the floor as Noah asked him grounding questions.

“I’m sorry,” Ted just barely heard the ram mumble. Noah shushes him, reassuring him that he’s okay.

“What happened?” Noah prompted. Schlatt opened his mouth to answer, but clicked it shut when he changed his mind. He shook his head. “If I let your arms go, are you gonna start scratching yourself again?”

“No…” Noah released the ram’s wrists and let him draw them to his chest, making himself as small as possible.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He wouldn’t make eye contact.

“Really?” Noah sounded doubtful.

“I’ll be fine,” Schlatt changed his original statement. His ear flicked. “I’m sorry I woke you all.”

“It’s okay,” Noah smiled reassuringly.

“It’s not.” Schlatt looked at the man, making no effort to return the smile.

  
  
  


Schlatt needed to make a mental note to never, _ever_ sleep while this high again. Nightmares while sober were bad enough, but now? He wasn’t even in his right mind while awake, who was he to think it _wouldn’t_ turn out this way?

His head pounded and his vision swam, his breathing was tight, too tight, he couldn’t breathe. He clawed at his arms to try and ground himself. He thought he heard a scream. Did someone scream? Was it him? He hoped not. That would be embarrassing.

He was spacing out, hard. He couldn’t get air, he was going to suffocate. His arms stung with how much he’d been scratching at them, when suddenly there was something touching him. God, no, fuck, don’t touch him. They grabbed his wrists, effectively stopping the scratching. He tried to push the person away, _please don’t touch him-_

“Schlatt, can you hear me?” A voice, he recognized it as Noah’s, came filtering into his mind, sounding garbled, but something to grab onto. He shakily nodded once he seized control of his body again, head still pounding, chest still burning, vision still just as distorted as his mindstate was, but here. Noah talked him through breathing again, and when he could breathe freely again, he stared at the floor. He could feel the waves of his mental presence coming and going, there was static in his ears, but he could still hear Noah’s voice. He didn’t deserve to be reassured.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, barely above a breath. He wasn’t even sure if the other heard it, but he meant it. They shouldn’t have to deal with him. Vaguely, he heard Noah say that it was okay, but he didn’t know what Schlatt was apologizing for. Not just waking them up, but for everything.

Noah released his wrists, and Schlatt curled in on himself. He felt nauseous. The push and pull in his head didn’t help. His eyes couldn’t focus on anything. Everything hurt.

“Are you okay,” Noah’s voice interrupted the rhythm of nausea in his head.

“I’m fine.” He wasn’t. 

“Really?”

“I’ll be fine,” he amended. He wouldn’t be. “I’m sorry I woke you all.”

“It’s okay.” He felt the man smiling at him. He looked up and met his eyes, vision clearing for a brief moment.

“It’s not,” he said, trying to convey how _not okay_ everything was, but how do you express something for which there are no words? There are only feelings, and those are especially difficult to express.

Eventually, everyone had gone back to bed, and someone else was in the room with him. Ted had gone to sleep as well. Schlatt couldn’t seem to get himself to look at who else was there. His head was pounding and there was a stabbing pain just behind his eyes.

The other person in the room touched his shoulder, and he finally tore his eyes away from the floor.

“Do you want something cold for your head? You look like you have a headache,” Travis explained. Schlatt nodded. Maybe something cold would ease the pressure in his head. Travis left, and came back with a beanbag that, when handed to Schlatt, was indeed cold. He nodded his thanks and put it on his forehead. The cold seeped into the burning in his head, soothing the pain. He let his head fall back into the couch so that he didn’t have to hold up the beanbag.

“Does that help at all?” Travis asked. Schlatt nodded and gave a small smile, a real one this time. Travis returned the smile, then started reading a book. Schlatt pulled the cold thing over his eyes and let the pressure melt away. For the first time in a long time, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

  
  
  


Travis could practically see the pain in Schlatt’s eyes, in the way he tried to zone out so hard that he forgot about it. He figured that the man probably wouldn’t want any more drugs, even painkillers, so he tried to think of other things that might help. Cold objects might help. He extended a hand to the ram hybrid, but then stopped himself. He didn’t like to be touched. That much had been made clear on his second day.

“Schlatt?” Not even a flick of the ear was given to acknowledge that Schlatt had even heard him. Travis tried calling him again, a little louder. Again nothing. He sighed, and lightly touched his shoulder. Schlatt’s eyes flicked up to meet his. Travis offered something cold, and Schlatt thought for a moment before nodding. Travis went to the freezer, quickly locating the little beanbag that they had in there for headaches and the such. He grabbed it, and handed it to the ram, who put it on his forehead. It looked like it was helping already.

Schlatt smiled at Travis, and he returned the smile. The dog hybrid sat back down on the other side of the couch, picking up a book. He read for a bit, and when he looked back up, Schlatt’s eyes were covered by the cold object, and he was leaning against the couch. If Travis didn’t know better, he would say that he was asleep, but he normally was rather restless when asleep. Mumbling things, fidgeting, etc.

Schlatt didn’t move for a long time. He didn’t move when Travis went to the bathroom. He didn’t move when he turned on the TV for a bit. He didn’t even move when the other guys filtered in, one by one, in the morning.

“Oh, hey. He went back to sleep,” one of them said. Schlatt did not wake up for a few more hours, when finally someone decided to wake him up for lunch. Carson tapped the ram on the shoulder, and Schlatt took a deep breath as he lethargically moved the beanbag (now no longer cold) off of his eyes.

“Huh? What did you want?”

“It’s around noon. Do you want something to eat?” Carson asked. Schlatt shrugged and sat up. When he stood up, he sorta swayed on his feet, and Travis remembered that he was very much still high. Schlatt slowly made his way to sit down at the table. 

“How’d you sleep?” Cooper asked.

“You know, I cannot remember the last time I slept that well. Like, no dreams, no nightmares, not even any floaty-sinking-stuck-in-water dreams. Just dark. I deadass forgot how to wake up like a normal person there.” Schlatt rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I feel less high, I guess, which is good.” 

“How do you normally wake up?” Charlie asked.

“I fucken scare myself awake.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise I just won’t wake up. My body just decides ‘ok, you have had enough,’ and makes me die in my dream or something and sends me back up here, to the land of the living.”

“So if you just don’t wake up, you’ll just sleep forever?”

“Yeah.”

“Like a sort of… Schleeping Beauty,” Ted chuckled. The others laughed along while Schlatt sat in confusion.

“I get that you were making fun of my name, but I have zero context for whatever other reference you were making,” the ram deadpanned.

“Oh, right, I forgot that your childhood was lame as shit!” Cooper nudged in, chuckling. Ted and Schlatt exchanged glances in some sort of agreement of ‘that was not funny’ while the others laughed. Ted knew something that the others didn’t, apparently. Something about Schlatt’s past.

“Why do you guys make fun of me the most when I can’t think right?” Schlatt asked, as soon as he noticed that the others were slowing down their laughter. Another roar of laughter was cued.

“You need to watch Sleeping Beauty now, I guess. Cause I’m not gonna stop with the name teasing,” Ted chuckled.

“I guess so.”

They all ate, and then they sat down around the couch again, putting on Sleeping Beauty.

Travis couldn’t help but wonder why Schlatt hadn’t seen any Disney movies, yet knew so many horror films, and stuff that no parent in their right mind would let a child watch. What had happened in this guy’s life that led him to be so cryptic, to hate it when people tried to touch him, to reject the thought that anything good could come of the world?

Travis wouldn’t ask him until he was ready to answer, but that didn’t stop him from wondering.

  
  
  


A few days later, Schlatt was completely fine again, the effects of the roofie had worn off, and you could hear him recording the intros for the next few videos that he would be editing.

It was like nothing had ever happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man, this was a tough one  
> like, I had the idea and everything, but writing the dissociation bits where he's just in his own head?  
> forgive me if this is inaccurate, I tried my best.
> 
> like 5600 words for you guys, have fun
> 
> comment if you'd like, it fuels my fire :)


	7. Package retrieval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur and Techno go and collect something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for that racist bitch again. She's back.

“Hey, Technoblade, how are you?”

“Wilbur. What’s up?”

“How would you like to threaten some racist bitch?”

“I mean, I’d love to, but why?”

“She hates hybrids.”

“I’m a hybrid.”

“She works at an orphanage…”

“I’m in.”

Wilbur hung up the phone. All he had to do was trigger the anarchist in his brother. For some reason, he wasn’t sure if it was just a bit that he did, but he just apparently hated orphans.

Regardless of Techno’s hatred of orphaned children (or maybe just orphanages), Wilbur had gotten him on board. He was gonna get Schlatt’s sweater for him, since he knew that the ram would never, ever do it himself.

When Techno showed up on SMP Live the next day, Wilbur grabbed the map that Schlatt had marked out where the juvenile center was, and met his brother at the place where people appear when they first get on the server, otherwise known as the ‘spawn’. He wasn’t hard to spot. A tall Piglin hybrid such as him stuck out like a sore thumb. Wilbur waved, and Technoblade strode over.

“You said there was some lady who needs punchin’?

“I did. It’s a bit out in the middle of nowhere, but this would be a huge favor.”

“Hey, man, anything to put these kinds of people in their place.” They made their way to the train station, and Wilbur pulled out that map again.

“Okay, so we need to take this line,” Wilbur said, pointing to the train line that went closest to their destination. Techno nodded, and they got in line to board the next train. They boarded, and sat down.

“Remember that time Phil took us on the train?” Techno asked, grinning. Wilbur started laughing.

“And Tommy damn near had a meltdown because you sat in the seat he wanted.”

“Oh, yeah! That was hilarious. What a nerd.”

They continued this sort of banter until they got to their stop, getting out and staring at the trees that framed in the juvenile center at the top of the hill. They hiked up, and finally made it to the worn down old building.

“Jeez, this place looks like a prison, what the heck are we doing here?” Technoblade asked.

“Do you remember my old friend, Schlatt?”

“Sheep boy?”

“Yeah. He used to live here.”

“Are you serious? Why?”

“Uhh, not any reason that was his fault. Anyways, he left something important here, and when he came back, they wouldn’t let him have it.”

“And you’re thinking they’ll let you have it?

“Well sure. And if they don’t, then perhaps they’ll let you have it,” Wilbur smirked. Techno’s lips twisted into a smile.

“You’re letting me off the leash?”

“Leash has been taken off. Let me talk to them first, and I’ll let you know what they say.”

“Okay.” Wilbur went inside, Techno close at his heels. He sauntered up to the front desk while the Piglin stood near the door ominously.

“Hello, there,” he said to the woman at the front desk.”

“Hello. Are you here to visit someone?” Her tone was pleasant.

“No, I’m here to see about picking up something that was left behind by one of the people who aged out.”

“Sure, what’s the name?” She turned to her computer and started typing.

“Schlatt.” The woman stopped typing.

“Him? I’m so sorry, sir, that function is unavailable right now.”

“But you were just looking at the list.”

“Good day.”

“Ma’am, if you could please at least look.” She rolled her eyes and looked back at the computer, finishing typing whatever she was typing.

“There’s nothing in his file,” she stated. Wilbur’s heart sank.

“Well that’s a damn lie,” Techno growled from the entrance of the room. He stalked forward.

“Excuse me?” said the woman.

“I said you were lying. Pull up his file, show us.” The woman looked suddenly very nervous upon seeing Technoblade. She pulled up the file, and turned around the monitor. Lo and behold, there was a short list of remaining belongings. A worn sky blue sweater, and a recorder.

“We’ll take them both.” Wilbur said.

“I cannot do that,” she said.

“You will.”

“Or what?” Wilbur smiled at Technoblade, who glared at the woman.

“Or else I have a pickaxe, and I’m gonna put it through your teeth,” he growled, pulling out his pickaxe, which gleamed with enchantments. The woman paled, and nodded shakily. She turned back to the computer and paged someone in the back to collect the stuff. Techno and Wilbur thanked her, albeit sarcastically, and stood a few blocks away from the counter, waiting.

A guard came out with a box, and handed it to the woman, who set it on the counter for them to collect. Wilbur picked it up, gave the lady and the guard a cheery smile, and walked out the door.

Techno started laughing as soon as they were out of the building.

“HAHAHA, NERD!” Wilbur chuckled along, gripping the box. He opened it up, and sure enough, there lay the old sweater, bunched up around a recorder.

They got back on the train, and Wilbur looked at the sweater.

“So why did we need a sweater?” Techno asked.

“It’s Schlatt’s. When he tried, they turned him away. It’s… a comfort blanket, if you will.” Wilbur explained. Techno nodded.

“Yknow, I think I remember him wearing that thing all the time before he moved.”

“Yeah. He didn’t want to, you know.”

“Yeah? I wasn’t that close with him, so I wouldn’t know. I remember his dad died and then he went off to boarding school or something.”

“No, he was sent to a hybrid testing facility.” Techno’s jaw dropped.

“Holy shit, are you serious?” Wilbur nodded. Techno hadn’t known, no one had. Everyone had assumed he’d be fine with the new people. They all assumed wrong. In hindsight, they should have known. Ever since his mother’s death, Schlatt’s father had never had Schlatt’s best interests in mind.

In fact, whenever Schlatt would come over, he always seemed like he didn’t want to go home. Wilbur had always chalked that up to having fun, but now he remembers the scared eyes when his father would tell him to come home.

Wilbur didn’t know what the ram boy did while he and his family were away at their other place. A place where everyone had English accents (except Technoblade).

He would come back, and Schlatt would always have strange bruises, and he would always ask why, and then would come Schlatt’s automatic reply of “guess I’m just clumsy.”

Oh how he wished he could have seen how rehearsed that line was.

One time, Wilbur and Schlatt were playing, and Schlatt mentioned sadly that he wished the fun would never end. Wilbur grinned and said that it might not have to. 

Wilbur had run to Phil and sweetly asked if Schlatt could stay the night. Phil had rubbed his head, and said that he had to ask Schlatt’s father.

When Mr. Schlatt showed up, he called out to his son in that gruff voice of his that Wilbur only realized now came from years of heavy smoking.

“Johnathan! Come on, we’re leaving!” And Schlatt had slowly walked over, like if he were in trouble, and Phil had started up a conversation with Schlatt’s dad. He slipped in that the young ram could stay the night, and Mr. Schlatt had rubbed his chin in thought, agreeing after a moment of thought. Then he brought Schlatt into another room, presumably to talk to him. Schlatt came back out after a moment, looking down, until he met Wilbur’s eyes, when he put on a smile. Looking back, it looked too fake to be real. Wilbur never found out what Schlatt’s dad had said to him, except that the only reason Schlatt could stay was because his dad was ‘also having a friend over’.

Why couldn’t Wilbur have noticed how good of an actor Schlatt was forced to be at such an early age? Why couldn’t he have noticed what a sad child Schlatt was? Then they shipped him away, Wilbur had let the boy go, into the hands of those who hated him. First his father, then the lab, then, when Wilbur finally knew, Schlatt had slipped through his fingers like smoke. More accurately, like water. And Schlatt had fallen down, down with the current of the water, through Wilbur’s grasp.

But now he was back, and he was slowly getting better. He was able to act less in favor of being genuine.

Wilbur was… proud.

  
  


They got back in town, and Wilbur bade goodbye to his brother, thanking him. He brought the box back to his house, and put it away for later. A Christmas gift or something. He didn’t think Schlatt had the best track record with Christmas in years past, so maybe this year could change that. Here’s hoping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second chapter this week! pog!
> 
> sorry this one is so short, next one will be longer!


	8. The ghosts of distant pasts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schlatt takes a trip through memory lane, accompanied by Charlie and Travis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we'll burn that bridge when we get to it
> 
> tw for /implied/ suicidal ideation
> 
> only in the first, like, three paragraphs tho.

Christmas was coming, and Schlatt was both nervous and excited at the same time. On one hand, this would be the first time since his mom died that he would be having a normal Christmas, complete with friends and seasonal food and all. On the other hand, he knew that every time Christmas rolled around, there was always the slow, sinking feeling that nothing would be okay again. He had spent every Christmas for the past twelve years alone in his room, it was almost a normal in his life.

He smiles when he thinks about the lonely years. Whenever he felt this alone, he could always feel the ones he lost so much closer. He couldn’t actually visualise his mother’s face anymore unless he was this close to the edge. Maybe it was because they were dead, and he felt like he was dying.

But he wasn’t dying. He didn’t want to die, not really. Right? Maybe he should try and talk to his mother. That usually helped when he was a child, cowering from his father when the man was drunk, wishing it was all over.

Schlatt chuckled to himself, allowing himself to feel like a child again. He closed his eyes, visualising his mom’s face for the first time in so many years. He spoke to her, as if he were just leaving a message on her phone.

“Hey, mom. I know it’s been awhile since we’ve talked, but I just thought you’d like to know I’m doing a lot better now. Things have taken a turn for the better this time, I’ve got some new friends now, they’ve been making sure I take care of myself.” He laughed to himself after saying that. God knows he wouldn’t take care of himself otherwise. “Anyway, it’s almost Christmas here, and, I, uh… I’ve been thinking about coming to see you a lot, would you like that? If I came and visited you? Not dad, though. He doesn’t deserve it,” he chuckled.

“I don’t think the guys would mind much if I visited you. I don’t think they’d notice much, to be honest. I normally stay in my room quietly, anyways. They won’t notice, mom, it’ll be fine. The only question now, is when? Before Christmas? After Christmas? I know you don’t mind much about timing, mom.”

  
  
  


Travis was walking the halls, heading to his room, when he noticed that Schlatt’s door was slightly cracked. He walked over to it to ask if he wanted it shut, but heard the ram talking to someone on the phone. 

“Would you like that? If I came and visited you?” Schlatt asked the other person. He continued the conversation, and Travis had entirely no clue who he was talking to until he said, “They won’t notice, mom, it’ll be fine.” Oh! Schlatt was talking to his mom. Schlatt didn’t actually talk about his family much, but then again, neither did anyone else. Travis went back to his room, to finish whatever he was doing, when he got a call from Wilbur.

He had actually asked Wilbur to do something for him a few days ago, so he assumed it was about that.

“Hey, Wilbur!”

“Hey, Travis. I have completed the task you asked me to do. Just thought I would let you know.”

“Oh, cool. Thanks. Say, what are you doing for Christmas?”

“Not much. You?”

“We generally have a little Christmas party, but I don’t know how that’s going to go over with Schlatt. His track record with parties isn’t exactly the best.” They shared a laugh. Wilbur had found out about Schlatt’s experience with the Halloween Party through less than favorable means. He had been away from the server that night, doing something with his brother, and when he returned, he came to visit about three days after the party, and there were still some lasting effects in Schlatt’s systems. When Wilbur had gotten there, Schlatt’s body had chosen that moment to zone out and walk him straight into a wall. Of course they had to tell him then. Wilbur chided Schlatt, telling him to be more careful next time, and Schlatt had just laughed in his face, saying, ‘rather bold of you to assume there will be a next time!’

“No, it isn’t,” Wilbur agreed with a chuckle. 

“Speaking of Schlatt, has he told you about his plans for the holidays?”

“No, I haven’t spoken to him.”

“Hmm. I think he’s gonna go see his mom for the holidays.” There was a long pause before Wilbur said anything, and when he spoke, it sounded so far away, like he was lost in thought.

“Is he now?”

“Well that’s what I think he said. He was on the phone with her just now.”

“Huh. Well, keep an eye on him for me, will you?”

  
  
  


Wilbur felt his blood chill when Travis said that Schlatt was going to visit his mother. Most of the house probably didn’t know, then.

Wilbur asked Travis to keep an eye on Schlatt for him, and then bade goodbye. He looked at his phone, opening up Schlatt’s contact, and glaring at it as if it had done something wrong. He should probably call the ram, make sure that he isn’t planning anything untoward. His thumb hovered over the call button, finally pressing down. It rang for a few seconds before it was answered.

“Hey, Wilbur. What’s up?”

“Hey, I was just wondering if you had any plans for the holidays.”

“Uhh, just hiding from the Lunch Club Christmas party. Other than that, not really.”

“No? I just got off the phone with Travis, he overheard a ‘phone call’ to your mum.”

“...” Schlatt went silent.

“So any plans for the holidays? Planning on visiting your mum? You know I ask this out of worry, Schlatt.”

“Her grave, Wilbur, I meant her grave. He heard it out of context,” he said defensively.

“I’m sure you did. I just wanted to make sure. Say, have you told them, yet?” Wilbur asked.

“About… about that? I think Ted knows. I don’t think he’s told anyone else.” 

“Are you ever going to tell them?”

“I’m just waiting for the best time. I think I’m ready to talk about it, I just don’t know how to bring it up.”

“Well then, why don’t you bring them with you? To visit your mum, I mean.”

“I don’t know. That might be a bit much. I could bring like, two of them, tell the others later.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with. Though I would encourage you to do it soon.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Wilbur,” Schlatt said.

“You’re welcome. Good luck,” Wilbur smiled. He ended the call.

  
  
  


Schlatt had proposed his trip over dinner that night, saying that he was going to go a few days before Christmas. It was a few days till then, too, so now or never. Most of the Lunch Club were busy over that day anyway, so only Travis and Charlie would be going with him.

Ted had given him a weird look, though.

So the day came, and Schlatt, Travis, and Charlie all set out to the railway. The ram had his backpack slung over one shoulder, not much in it, by the looks of things. Schlatt made a quick stop by the store and bought some flowers, which his friends had cooed at him for, saying he was ‘such a nice son’ and ‘she will love those’.

“I don’t think it’ll matter much if she does,” he chuckled awkwardly.

“Why not?” Travis asked.

“How’s she gonna return them?” He answered, thinking quickly. Vague, yet still applicable. Perfect. They got on the train after figuring out which one to take, and settled in for a bit of a long ride.

“So how long has it been since you saw your mom, Schlatt?” Travis asked, making conversation while they sat.

“Oh, a long time.”

“Like, how long?”

“Just over twelve years now.”

“Why?”

“She and dad… split up, I guess, when I was six. I couldn’t see her. I wrote her letters, though.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Did she ever respond?” Travis’ ears were pushed back, likely in pity. Schlatt didn’t want their pity.

“No. I didn’t ever send them. I just wrote them.”

“Oh.”

They passed the time playing cards with a card deck that Charlie had brought along, the slime hybrid making as many puns as possible, either about the cards, trains, the passing landscape, even the people who were with him.

Finally they arrived at their stop, and they got off the train. Schlatt looked around. The place was entirely deserted. There were no people, there was just silence. There weren’t even many sounds from nature, even birds. There was just the wind and the sound of the kind of silence that only really comes from total abandonment.

“Woah. This place is a ghost town. You sure this is the right place, Schlatt?” Charlie’s words echoed through the quiet street. Schlatt nodded. This was the place, alright.

  
  
  


Charlie wasn’t sure what to think. The most private person in the house very suddenly opens up and invites them to meet his mother, only for him to drag them out to this absolute ghost town of a place. Was he going to kill them? This would be the last place anyone would think to look, so it would be a pretty smart move. 

“Woah. This place is a ghost town. You sure this is the right place, Schlatt?” Charlie looks over at Schlatt, who has a faraway look in his eyes, and he can tell that yes, this is the right place. Schlatt starts walking, and Charlie and Travis follow him.

“I don’t know about you, Charlie, but I don’t think we’re gonna see his mom here…” Travis whispered. Charlie nodded. Schlatt led them past the housing districts, to the opposite side of town as the train station. There was an old church, and a graveyard beyond that. Schlatt led the way to the cemetery, stopping once just inside. Then he turned to them.

“Hey, could I actually have a quick sec?” the ram asked, rubbing the back of his neck. Travis and Charlie exchanged a look, before nodding at him. He smiled awkwardly and turned back to the graveyard and walked farther in. He walked around before finally placing a hand gently on top of a headstone, placing the flowers he brought on top of it. Schlatt knelt down in the dead grass and tugged away the weeds, tossing them aside and dusting off the words on the gravestone. Then he sat cross-legged, and began talking. Travis and Charlie couldn’t hear, it was too far away, and his voice was too quiet, though they supposed that he didn’t need to talk very loudly. They exchanged a glance, coming to a conclusion that they would give him a bit of space before going to talk to him.

They wondered around the graveyard, looking at the names of the dead. Finally they found a few with names they recognised. Two more people bearing the name of Schlatt. 

“Hey, Charlie?”

“Yeah.”

“Is his entire family dead?”

“I think so.”

“Is that what he’s been avoiding this whole time? He keeps acting dodgy, being super vague. When he said his parents split, you could hear the air quotes in his voice, Charlie.”

“I know.” He had no puns to say, now. It didn’t seem like the time for them, anyway.

“I think Ted knew.”

“I think Ted has known for a good long while. Remember the first time we went to the bar with Schlatt?”

“Yeah. He K.O.ed that guy.”

“I came back into the living room and they were acting like they had just met.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Once Schlatt left the room, Ted told me they came to some sort of agreement. I think that’s when Schlatt told him. That night,” Charlie finished.

“Makes sense.” Travis pointed at the two headstones labeled ‘Schlatt’. “Who do you think these guys are?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. One of them is probably his dad.”

“Yeah.” They stood in silence for a few minutes, taking in all that they learned today.

“Hey, guys. I’m done,” Schlatt said, appearing behind them. They both jumped at his voice, and he chuckled. “Who’d you find?”

“Uhh, we found a few people with your name,” Travis said, pointing to them. Schlatt looked at them, smiling fondly at one.

“This was my uncle. He was my favorite relative, by far. Tore my dad up when he died. He had horns, too, y’know. I think it’s actually a curse in my family, like, the youngest in the family gets the horns when the previous bearer dies.”

“So when did you get your horns?” Charlie asked.

“I was five. Dad didn’t like them. Mom cheered me up whenever the growing pains would hit. You two were born hybrids, right?”

“Yeah,” Charlie and Travis said in unison.

“Consider yourself lucky. At least you didn’t have to feel your feet turning into hooves,” the ram chuckled.

“So who’s the other guy?” Charlie asked, gesturing at the other headstone. Schlatt’s face darkened, and something akin to hatred burned in his dark red eyes.

“Hi, dad,” was all he said at the headstone, and very icily did he say it. He walked away from the graves, and Charlie and Travis followed him. They went out of the cemetery and headed back to the residential district.

“Do you guys wanna see my old house?” Schlatt asked. They nodded, and he led them to a rickety old house that looked like it was about one strong gust of wind from falling over. It was a very old house, just like all of the others here. Completely abandoned. Schlatt tried opening the door, only to find it locked. He checked under the welcome mat, finding a rusty old key laying there. He unlocked the door, and it creaked open somewhat eerily.

Schlatt began giving a tour of the house, picking up objects and telling the story behind them, then either putting them down or putting them in his backpack. That must have been why he brought it. Sometimes he would see an object and steer clear away from it, with no explanation given. Sometimes Charlie or Travis would ask a question that would go entirely unanswered, or very vaguely answered.

“Did your dad play golf?” Charlie asked at one point, upon seeing several golf clubs leaning up against a corner.

“No,” was all that Schlatt offered in the way of an answer. He moved on. He would pick up pictures, tell their stories, before putting some back or putting them in his backpack. He led them to his old room, and however low their hearts had sunk at hearing his bittersweet tales, they sunk even lower at seeing the almost barren room. There was a bed and a clothes chest, and that was basically it. The walls were covered in a peeling wallpaper, rather bland for a child’s room.

“This was my room. I read a lot, and when Wilbur was in town I’d play with him. He lived a few doors down. Most of the year they were in the UK, though. They just lived here in the summer,” Schlatt said. He then led them to the kitchen, where he found his mom’s old recipe book. He slipped it in his backpack with the other things. Then the tour was over, they had been through almost every room in the house.

“Could you guys give me a minute? Like, wait outside? I’m gonna say goodbye. I’m not coming back,” the ram said.

“Sure, man. Take your time,” Travis patted him on the shoulder. Before they left, Charlie turned back to see the man opening his backpack for something.

“I’m surprised. I thought we were actually gonna meet his parents, I was not expecting this, hot damn,” Charlie said once they were outside.

“Yeah. A lot of things make sense now. Like, he was foreshadowing the entire time and I’m just now getting it. I almost feel bad.”

“Almost?”

“Well, yeah. There’s gotta be a reason he didn’t want to tell us, and I gotta say, I think he just didn’t want the pity.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” They stood in silence for a few minutes, until Travis’ ears suddenly went back, and his eyes widened. He sniffed the air.

“Do you smell that? Smells like… smoke,” the dog hybrid said, looking around to find the source of the smell. As it got stronger, Charlie could smell it, too.

“Oh my god, it does.” They looked at the house. Black smoke had begun seeping out of the windows, the doors, and just about anything it could get out of. Inside, they could see fire flickering as it consumed the old wood. Schlatt walked out of the front door, covered in ash. He walked over to them, standing shortly in front of them as he turned to watch the fire rage. His face was passive as he stood and stared as the heat grew. Travis and Charlie backed up, the flames burning them from all the way outside. Charlie’s eyes flicked from the fire to Schlatt, the ram entirety too calm to have just set a building on fire. He notices a single tear slip down his face, leaving a little trail in the ash on his face.

The house started creaking with the crackling of the fire, and Travis reached out and pulled Schlatt back before the house began to collapse. 

“Let’s go,” the ram hybrid said, walking away from the fire.

“Shouldn’t we put the fire out?” Travis asked. Schlatt looked back at the fire, then looked at them.

“Why? No one lives here anyway. If the world decides that that house and all of its sins still deserves to stand, it will send a rain to come and put out the fire.” he waited a moment, looking challengingly at the sky. “No? That’s what I thought.” He started walking back to the train station. Travis and Charlie shared one look back at the fire, before deciding not to argue with the ram on this one, catching up to him quickly. 

They got back on the train, headed homebound. Schlatt did not once look back at the ghost town, electing to let it simply be what it was, a ghost of the past, fading away in his memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3000 words
> 
> third chapter this week, pog!
> 
> thank you all for your support, comment if you wish, it fuels me lmao  
> :D


	9. Happy Christmas!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas on the server! pile in, everybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry i'm late!
> 
> tw abuse scars

It was officially Christmas. Everyone was very excited, especially since they had figured out that this was Schlatt’s first Christmas with friends.

The Ram hybrid, upon realizing that he was expected to participate in Christmas, got everyone presents. They weren’t the best, since it was last minute and he had no idea what they wanted, but he thought they were pretty good.

He had taken some time with all of them, and really thought, because his friends had done so much for him, even if they didn’t think so. They deserved anything that he could give back to them, after all that they had done for him.

  
  
  


Carson invited Wilbur over Christmas morning. He figured that Schlatt would probably appreciate that. The other guys hadn’t come down yet, except for Ted, who was making breakfast, so that left Wilbur and Carson to chat.

“So what did you get everyone?” Wilbur asked. Carson chuckled.

“I went a bit on the funny side this year. I got everyone gag gifts. Beyond that, I’m not gonna say.”

“That sounds like it’s going to be a lot of chaotic fun.”

“Here’s hoping. What about you?”

“Eeh, I tried to stick to useful things, things I know you guys will use. I am really proud of what I got for Schlatt, though. He’s really gonna like it.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t tell him. It’s a sweater.”

“A… a sweater? Okay, nice.”

“It’s gonna be his favorite thing,” Wilbur insisted.

“Okay, now that’s a little far. It’s a sweater. How do you know a sweater is better than what I got him?” Carson said, his competitive side coming out.

“And what’s that?”

“A rubber rat.”

“Oh, damn it, you’ve got me beat,” Wilbur laughed with Carson.

“Damn right I have!”

Slowly but surely, everyone filtered down at the smell of bacon cooking. They ate breakfast, chatting around the kitchen. Schlatt ate in silence, Carson noticed, reading something.

“What are you reading?” He asked.

“The Christmas story. You can take a Catholic outta the faith but you can’t take the faith out of the Catholic,” he gave a small smile.

“Right. I thought you didn’t do it much anymore.”

“I do, just in my room. Didn’t have time this morning.”

“Oh. Can I ask why you do it?”

“My family used to read the Christmas story in the Bible on Christmas morning. Guess it stuck.” He smiled sheepishly.

“Well more power to you. I think it’s cool how you still do it,” Carson patted him on the back. “Let us know when you’re done, we’ll go in there after you finish.”

“Thanks.”

A few minutes later, there was a sound of a closing book, and Schlatt poked him.

“I’m done. We can go in, now.” Everyone went into the room with the Christmas tree, and Carson saw Schlatt’s eyes go wide at the sight.

“Hey, man, how long has it been since you really celebrated Christmas like this?” Noah asked, also noticing. Schlatt blinked, and he went red right down to the tips of his ears.

“Twelve years,” he muttered.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, Well today we break that chain. Merry Christmas, Schlatt,” Wilbur grinned, ruffling his hair. Schlatt batted his hand away, but he was smiling.

“Merry Christmas to you guys, too.”

  
  
  


They started opening presents. They all opened Carson’s first, since they probably knew he would do gag gifts. Schlatt put his rubber rat on top of his head, and everyone laughed. After that they did everyone else’s, and Wilbur went last. They distributed the presents, and opened them. Charlie, Cooper, and Ted tore into theirs, just like they had with every other present. Carson and Wilbur tucked into them moderately quick, and Travis, Noah, and Schlatt took their time with it.

Sure enough, Wilbur had gotten them useful things, but Carson watched Schlatt’s reaction to the sweater that Wilbur had gotten him. Wilbur was watching, too.

Schlatt had frozen as soon as he opened the box just a little bit, looking up at Wilbur in bewilderment.

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” Wilbur said, grinning like a kid in a candy store.

“You- I- how? I couldn’t even get it!”

“I may or may not have recruited Technoblade to assist me.”

“Holy shit, Wilbur,” Schlatt was shocked.

“What is it?” Ted asked, peeking over his shoulder. “It’s a sweater. Dude. Come on, Drama Queen, you had us going there for real. He’s getting better at acting, guys,” Ted announced, and there were various nods, except from Wilbur and Carson. Carson, because he was shocked that either it really did mean quite a bit to him, or that Wilbur very discreetly let him in on the joke. If the second one was the case, he was overplaying it. Wilbur, on the other hand, was grinning giddily, watching Schlatt stare in awe at the sweater.

Schlatt pulled it out of the box and broke out into a broken laughter when a recorder fell out of the sweater and into the box.

“Holy fuck I forgot about the fucking recorder,” he breathed through laughs. The ram’s nose was red, and something gave Carson the impression that Schlatt wasn’t acting. In fact, he wasn’t even paying attention to anyone else in the room, even though all eyes were in him. He just stared in disbelief at this ragged old sweater that smelled vaguely of mothballs. His eyes were watery. He definitely wasn’t acting.

Rather suddenly, he got up and dashed to his room, shouting “just a minute” as he left. As soon as he was out of the room, the chatter resumed.

“Well he overplayed  _ that _ ,” Cooper chuckled. Wilbur smirked. “What?”

“See, I told Carson, but I didn’t tell you all. I got him the best present,” the Brit said.

“A second-hand sweater? Where’d you find it, Goodwill?”

“I suppose I cheated, actually. That was already his.”

“What do you mean?”

“Has he ever told you about the place he was before this?”

“Nnno,” Cooper muttered, and the same time Ted said, “a bit.” Cooper looked at him funny.

“He told you shit about his past? And you didn’t tell us?”

“He wasn’t ready for everyone to know. He told me indirectly, anyway. I just put pieces together,” Ted explained.

“Well regardless of whether or not you know, he left those things at the place he was at before. He tried going back, with me, and they wouldn’t let him have it.”

“That’s fucked up,” Noah muttered.

“So Techno and I went back and got it.”

“I’m gonna go check on Schlatt really quick, it shouldn’t take this long to change,” Ted got up.

  
  
  


Ted knocked on Schlatt’s door, pushing it gently open. Schlatt was on his knees, staring blankly at the bright blue fabric clutched in his hands.

“Schlatt? Buddy? You okay?” Ted asked, closing the door behind him. Schlatt turned his head to hear him better. Ted knelt down beside him. “What are you thinking about?”

“It’s what they’d want, right? For me to tell you guys?”

“I don’t…”

“They’d want me to be okay, right? They wouldn’t want me to isolate myself anymore?”

“Of course not. You’re not alone, man.”

“But they-”

“It’s okay, man. Who are ‘they’ anyway?”

“My family. Not dad, fuck dad. But mom. And my uncle.”

“They would want the best for you. And the best thing you can do for them is to want the best for yourself. Okay?” Schlatt nodded dully. “What do you think is the best thing for you?”

“...” Schlatt was silent for a second. “I’m ready.”

“What? Ready for what?”

“To tell you guys.”

“Really?” Schlatt nodded, finally meeting his eye. There was confidence behind his red eyes. Ted smiled. Schlatt smiled back. “I’ll let you finish changing.” Ted turned around, but stayed in the room to make sure that Schlatt didn’t immediately get lost in thought again. When he thought that Schlatt was finished, he turned around.

Schlatt was not finished. He was struggling on getting the blue sweater over his horns without them snagging it. Ted looked down at Schlatt’s back, wincing when he saw all the scars that adorned it. He grimaced just thinking about all of the shit that Schlatt must have gone through to have that many. It must have hurt. 

The ram hybrid finally got the sweater around his horns, and Ted whipped back around. Schlatt cleared his throat, and Ted looked back at him to see him giving the thumbs up.

“You know, it’s weird. I haven’t really felt like myself in so long, I forgot what it felt like to…” he trailed off.

“To be yourself?” Ted tried to supply.

“I don’t even know who that is anymore.” Schlatt murmured. Ted rested a hand on the ram hybrid’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay. We’ll help you figure it out.”

“Thank you.” They had a moment of silence.

“This sweater is really soft.” Ted said suddenly. Schlatt chuckled.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve had it for a long time. Well, sorta. Not recently, but whatever.”

“Yeah. So,” Ted clapped Schlatt’s back lightly. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” They left Schlatt’s room, going back into the living room.

“Hey, guys, hope you aren’t talking about anything important, Schlagg here has a schtory to tell you all!” Ted announced. Chatter ceased in the room, and Schlatt punched Ted in the arm. “Sorry, sorry. Not. Go ahead, Schlagg. Unless you’re too shcared.”

“Hey, Ted. Remember that time at that bar and you got in a fight?” Schlatt asked.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to headbutt you if you don’t shut the fuck up.”

“I’m sorry, what happened at the bar? I wasn’t there,” Wilbur raised his hand, not knowing the context.

“Few months ago, when Schlatt was still new here, we went to a bar, and Ted got in a fight with someone, and Schlatt headbutted him and knocked him out,” Noah explained.

  
“What the hell.”

“AnYwAyS, Schlatt has a story,” Ted brought the conversation back, finally ceasing making light of the situation. Schlatt nodded his thanks, and began.

“It all started when I was a small boy…” he started dramatically.

“You’re still small,” Cooper laughs.

“Rich, coming from you.”

“No, no, he’s right, you’re still small,” Carson chuckled.

“I’m ready to talk to you guys, do you want me to talk?” Schlatt asked, ear twitching. The guys must have realized he was serious, because they stopped.

“Yeah, sorry, sorry,” they apologised. Schlatt started over.

“It all started when I was a small boy…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry to leave you all on a cliffhanger! i'll be back soon


	10. gather round, everyone. ram boy has a story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schlatt tells the guys his story. it has been long overdue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry for the inconsistent upload schedule. 
> 
> but you know how it is. i get done when i get done.

“When I was a child, my life was great. I was young, I could play, I could do what any other normal kid could. Wilbur would come to town every summer and we would practically spend everyday together. Then he left for Britain again in the fall. But it was okay, because he would be back the next summer. Life was great,” Schlatt started. The faces of his friends were all turned towards him, entranced in his story already.

“When I was five, my uncle died. He was a ram hybrid as well, but I wasn’t until he died. It’s like a curse or something. It was a rather painful transformation that winter. I grew little horn nubs and everything. I’ve got a picture here,” he pointed to one of the pictures he’d brought down with him. It showed him and Wilbur, and he had white fur pretty much everywhere. He was wearing the same blue turtleneck, though it covered half his face.

“Woah, your eyes are blue in this!” Travis noted. “Why are they red, now?”

“Yeah that’s coming later. Anyway, I asked my parents a few months after I’d finished turning why I only started after my uncle died, and they sat down next to me in my bed, and my dad would begin this tall tale, ‘well, son, it was your great, great, great,  _ great _ -grandma’s fault,’ he would say. He’d poke me in the stomach every time he said great, cause it’d make me giggle,” he said, a small smile on his face as he recalled. His friends smiled with him, though he didn’t see. “He would say ‘you see, son, our family is cursed. The youngest at the time that the previous ram passes receives the curse of the ram.’ And I would ask why, and he would smile and say, ‘because, son, your great, great, great,  _ great _ \- grandma fucked a ram.’ And my mom would slap his arm and say, ‘Jeb!’ all condescending-like, and he’d say, ‘sorry, sorry. Your great, great, great, great,  _ great _ -grandma fucked a ram. Missed a great there.’ and I would laugh and laugh, and they would chuckle along.” Schlatt liked to think of himself as a good storyteller. The kids at the detention center certainly liked to hear him tell stories. His friends were all in hive-mind mode, smiling in unison when it was time to smile. It was all tone-based.

He continued.

“But then my mom died. My dad had been a little different since my uncle died, but we were at least able to get along still, he just drank more sometimes. But the fall after I became a hybrid, when I was six, my mom and I got in a car crash. She didn’t make it. My father was never the same. I remember trying to lift his spirits once, asking him to tell me the story of the Ram curse, and he smiled and sat down beside me in my bed, and said, ‘well, son, it doesn’t fucking matter, does it?’ And he grabbed my arm real tight and got all up in my face and told me that if I ever asked him that again that he would break my fucking arm. I said, ‘dad, you’re hurting me,’ and he gripped my arm tighter and said, ‘good’. And I knew that things were gonna be a bit different from then on. That wasn’t my dad anymore, not really. So I taught myself how to act. No one had any idea. Not my teachers, not Wilbur’s dad, not Wilbur. No offense, man,” he held a hand up to Wilbur, “but if I told anyone, I knew it would just get worse.”

Wilbur looked down at his hands.

“You were scarily good at acting for a six-year-old, I remember,” Wilbur murmured.

“Hey, man, I’m a YouTuber now, I get paid to act. Experience, my dude.”

“Stop saying that like it’s a good thing. Stop brushing shit off like it’s nothing and continue the story.”

“Right, right. Where was I? Right. Nobody knew. Wilbur would come back in the summer and I wouldn’t ever tell him, brushing off bruises and shit as being a clumsy person, I wasn’t, I just pretended to be. I think you started to suspect, Wilbur, around when I was nine-ish, but there wasn’t shit you could do. Anyway, getting to the good part, my dad died when I was ten. Thankfully towards the end of the summer when I was ten, like I had just turned ten, Wilbur’s family had stayed for about a week after my tenth birthday because fuck if I know, they never stayed for my birthday, but that year they did.”

“Sorry, you said ‘getting to the good part’ and then said that your dad died. What the hell?” Cooper asked.

“I must have glossed over the fact that he was a fucking asshole, Coop. My bad. Anyway, getting  _ back _ to the good part, my dad is fucking dead. He died when I was ten. I called up Wilbur’s house, and I put on my best sad voice, and told his dad what happened. He told me to stay right there, and then he came and got me. I cannot stress how… liberating it felt to be out from under that man’s thumb,” Schlatt chose his words carefully.

“Really quick, you said your dad died of an overdose, yeah?” Wilbur asked.

“Is that what I said? Yeah.”

“What the- what do you… whatever. I want to mention, I was thirteen when this happened, I knew about drugs and shit, but I always found it so incredibly haunting how much you knew about the world as a child. I remember you called me once when you were like, eight, and you tried to sound conversational, but I could tell you were panicking about something, and you had to hang up the phone because your father was having a ‘friend’ over. Do you know how long it took for me to realize what that meant?” Wilbur pressed a finger to his temple.

“Oh, yeah, I knew waaay too much. That was the only reason I was ever able to stay the night at your house.”

“Wait, what?” Carson asked. Everyone looked very confused.

“Fucking hookers. Dear old dad never got over mom, but he sure as hell replaced her. Booze, hookers, and drugs were his go-tos whenever he felt literally anything.”

“That’s kind of dark.”

“Well this whole thing is dark, Carson.”

“Wait, what the fuck did you do while we were back in Britain?” Wilbur asked, eyes wide.

“Put a pillow over my ears.”

“Did that work?”

“No. Not at all. I said that to be funny. It didn’t work. Sometimes I would camp out in the backyard, or if it was particularly cold, I would deadass find the key under your doormat and sleep in your house. Sorry.”

“You know what, I would have done that too.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna continue now.”

“Okay.”

“After my dad died, I stayed with Wilbur’s family until the funeral, where the will was read, and my fate was decided. I was supposed to go to some fancy ‘science foundation’, which was complete and utter bullshit. It wasn’t a boarding school for science, which was what Wil’s dad thought it was. It was a, uh, a hybrid testing facility. My father hated my guts. That feeling was so mutual. At any rate, I had to go to this facility, and they did tests and shit on me.” Schlatt looked up from the ground, which he had been staring at. His friends looked haunted, especially Cooper, Travis, and Charlie, the other hybrids in the room.

“What… what kinds of tests?” Travis asked, his voice small.

“Do you really wanna know?” Schlatt raised an eyebrow. Travis thought about it for a second, but then nodded. “Physical tests, mostly. Testing my abilities and stuff. Like, I can climb really well with the hooves, but the trade-off is that I can’t swim for shit. They, um, and I actually have, uh, I haven't ever told anyone this. They thought it was really fucking funny or something to watch me try and swim, or that’s what it seemed like to me, because they tried to drown me at  _ least _ once a month, I think. They did not give me access to time, either. I only found out how long I’d been there when Wilbur told me. But you guys wonder why I really do not like water, that’s why. You would think I was used to it, but… it’s like the second I touch any significant amount of water I just blank in the head and freak out. I have not learned how to hold my breath underwater, because even if I had, it wouldn’t matter, because I dissociate from my body immediately.”

“You don’t have to talk about this anymore if you don’t want to, Schlatt. No one is forcing you,” Noah said. Schlatt cocked his head at him. “You’re shaking.”

The ram looked down at his hands. “Oh,” he said dumbly. “I’m fine. I need to get it out, anyway. I haven’t ever gone into detail about it, and it’s not going anywhere. Might as well fill someone in.” He took a deep breath before continuing.

“They did tests like that, like physical abilities and shit, but they did, like, mental stuff, like quizzes and stuff. The combos were the worst, like mental and physical abilities. I don’t know how else to describe it. Like, pain and stuff. That’s mental and physical. Like, your body feels it, but the mind can block it out.”

“Like when you broke your knuckle,” Ted snapped his fingers, realizing. 

“Like when I broke my knuckle. It took me longer than it should have to realize my knuckle was broken because I… don’t feel much pain… anymore. My tolerance to pain is far higher than it has any right to be. It wasn’t just because of anger or adrenaline. If it were just that, I would have still realized sooner. I deadass didn’t feel it until we had to set it, and then that was entirely mental preparation on my part.”

“That is actually really freaky. Like, you don’t feel pain? What if you burned your hand or something? That can cause some serious damage,” Charlie said, brows furrowed.

“No, no. I mean, I feel it, but it’s not… only really significant pain. If you punch me in the shoulder, I’ll feel it, but only the impact. Depending how hard you hit me, it might be sore tomorrow, but initial impact, I won’t feel pain. A burn, I will feel. That’s like, more serious. A broken bone, you know, I’ve had more than a few, it honestly doesn’t register for a bit unless it’s in constant use. Although I once broke my ankle and that hurt like a bitch, so. Dunno about that. I just guess it depends on how much shit my body wants to put up with on any given day.”

“Huh. Still freaky.”

“I will concede that point and move on. Anyway, despite there being a lotta shit wrong with me because of that place, I gotta admit, I only knew as much as I did about our world because of them. Not this specific world, no, but just, the world in general. They taught me mechanics and shit. How to make obsidian, how to make cobblestone. They stuck me in Hardcore, I lasted maybe a little under a month? Died by a fucking ravager, that hurt. Although on a slightly darker note, it was fucking hilarious to feel my soul leave my body for a sec and watch in third person as my body gets ragdolled twenty feet away. Then I was back in the lab. Eventually, they kinda got done with me, and so they made up some challenges for me. Realistically, if they wanted me to lose the first few outside challenges we actually did, then they shouldn’t have taught me all that stuff about the mechanics of life..”

“Are those the-” Wilbur trailed off.

“Yeah. A few years of being there later, they apparently got done with me, so they threw me in an enclosed space, locked up with a barrier, and told me hey, here’s what we’re doing. The first challenge was like, TNT raining from the sky, and I passed that one. The second one was like, the lava level would go up every so often, but that was easy.”

“The fuck? How? It’s lava!” Cooper asked incredulously.

“And I am sure that you can ask Charlie or Travis how much I just love fire.” There were a few awkward coughs from the two mentioned, while the rest of the group looked around, confused. “Anyway, I just got two buckets. Water and lava make cobblestone, right? So you build a little staircase up, then let lava flow down the stairs, then pour water over it, and suddenly you’ve got yourself a surefire way to essentially have infinite cobblestone. Then, when the lava almost caught up with me, I made some ladders and boxed myself in, and shoved that in the scientist’s face. Then I got thrown in a completely new area, and it had tall mountains and stuff, and somehow Wilbur was there.”

“Can I ask a question?” Noah raised his hand.

“Sure.”

“These all seem rather deadly. TNT? Lava? What the hell?”

“Oh, they were for sure trying to kill me, they just wanted to see what did it best.”

“Why did they want to kill you?”

“I knew too much. They were done with me, but I knew too much for them to just let me go. The shit they did was super inhumane, but apparently hybrid experimentation is legal because we aren’t exactly human, so the inhumane laws have no traction in there. Anyway, somehow Wilbur was trapped in the same place I was. In this challenge, the water level kept rising. Had Wilbur not been there, I would for sure be dead, because I’m not sure if I’ve said anything, but I cannot fucking swim,” he said rather sarcatically. “I’m not gonna go into detail, it’s somewhat inconsequential to the story, you already know I don’t like water.” That was a lie. He was letting Wilbur keep his pride.

“Can I, then?” Wilbur asked, shocking Schlatt.

“Dunno why you would want to, but I guess.”

“I was a right arsehole in this story, and he’s sparing my pride. I didn’t know he couldn’t swim, right, and we had a little house. The little house got completely swallowed by the water, and I left to make a new one. There was a lack of communication, though, and I forgot to tell him where I was going. I came back, and he refused to come up to my new house with me, saying that he couldn’t, so I flooded his house. It was only after that that I learned that he literally couldn’t. So I swam up again, to get something floaty, but I didn’t tell him where I was going. Apparently, he thought I left for good, because I look down at his little house and I see him trying to swim up and failing rather miserably. He almost fucking died because I suck at communication,” Wilbur explained. There was a tense silence in the room. Schlatt filled it.

“Oh, well you say that like me almost dying is anything new to me. Gotta keep you guys on your toes,” he joked.

“That is not funny.”

“It was.”

“No it was not.”

“Okay, well, we’re all entitled to our own opinion, I guess, and I can’t help if yours is wrong.”

“I, you… you’re a bastard.” Wilbur finally chuckled.

“Alright. I’m gonna continue. We ended up at the world height limit, and he was on a platform and I was in a boat. The world border disappeared, and the water started falling, taking my boat with it. I must have sailed… miles by the time anything happened. My boat hit a rock and I got just fucking launched. Hit my head or something, cause when I woke up people were tugging on my horns and shit, and I freaked out, must have headbutted someone and then passed out again, cause when I woke up, I was in this weird place. It was basically a detention center, or an orphanage for ‘unruly children’, so it was structured like child jail. It was hell. I’ll be honest, I think that it was worse, mentally, than the labs. In the labs, at least I knew why they did shit. For science, right? But this, they would just do shit and tell me I deserved it. Never tell me why, just say that I did something wrong, and give me shit for it.” He was fiddling with his sleeves, picking at the cuffs.

“And I carried that with me for years. Oh, I must have done something, it’s my fault what happened to me. I was fourteen. I didn’t deserve that! But somehow they convinced me I did. It… I… I ended up in this pit. I mentioned before that the labs dulled me to pain? This place, it dulled me of, of everything. I tried everything to feel  _ anything  _ again. And I know it sounds dark, but I just wanted to… to feel something. And I took that with me everywhere. I know I told Ted, at least indirectly, but I genuinely believed for years that everything that had ever happened to me was my fault. Some way or another, it was. They just, just drilled that into my head, and when I came here I had been working on getting that shit out, I had been working on ditching my horrible fucking habits, but that night we went to the bar and I got pissed at Ted, it fucked me up all over again.” Schlatt took a shaky breath, only just now realizing he hadn’t been breathing properly. His chest hurt.

“What was it I said, again?” Ted asked.

“I dunno, we were talking about like, our families and shit, and you rather offhandedly said that I must have done  _ something _ to deserve it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know. I believe in second chances, it’s in the past. Regardless, I was kinda fucked up about it, took me a while to come out of my shell, as a few of you might have noticed,” he joked.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to lighten the mood, Schlatt,” Wilbur said, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Right. Well, I didn’t ever tell anyone when I was spiraling again, cause I didn’t wanna explain everything. I wasn’t ready.”

“Did you spiral often?”

“It’s been getting a lot better for the past few months. The first few weeks I was here it really hit hard, because for the longest time, I was told that I didn’t deserve anything good, and so I was just constantly waiting for the ball to drop, for you guys to finally snap, kick me out, hurt me, do  _ something _ , and you have no idea how disorienting it was for it to never come after putting up with this shit for twelve fucking years,” he said, his voice a little weak. He was still fiddling with his sleeves, and he felt shaky, his head aching.

“You don’t need to force yourself, man. It’s okay if you need to stop.” Travis spoke gently. Schlatt shook his head.

“No, I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re crying, dude.” Schlatt reached a hand to his face. There were wet spots where the tears fell, and his face felt burning warm.

“Oh.” He brought his sleeve up and wiped his face, controlling his breathing so that he could calm himself down.

“Do you need to stop?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Can I ask when the last time you were spiraling was? So we know what it looks like so we can help?” 

“It’s different sometimes. Uhh, I mean, I started to this morning, I’ll be honest, but Ted came in and pulled me out, talked me through it. I don’t know how it looks on your end, though,” he said, looking at Ted.

“You basically zoned out really hard. Staring at nothing, not blinking, body almost completely relaxed, which is the main thing. You’re always so tense, it’s a huge red flag when you aren’t,” Ted explained. Schlatt nodded.

“The time before was when Travis overheard me talking to my mom. You thought I was on the phone.”

“Yeah.”

“Then you told Wilbur and he got onto me about that, and I guess it’s time for me to address that. If you guys hadn’t come with me to visit her, let’s just say I might have made my visit a bit more permanent. I wasn’t in a good mindspace that week.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I don’t… I didn’t want to explain it. I wasn’t ready. But, now you know. You know just about everything. Any questions?”

“I have one,” Charlie raised his hand. Schlatt nodded at him. “Well, actually two. Ted, you knew, why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I have some level of respect for people’s privacy, and since he wasn’t ready to tell anyone and only told me because I sent him headfirst into a mental breakdown, I decided to let him tell you all in his own time,” Ted explained.

“Thanks for that, by the way,” Schlatt nudged him. “What’s your other question?”

“Yeah. Why did you burn down your old house?” Schlatt took a deep breath. Wilbur looked at him in shock.

“Oh, don’t you pretend to be shocked. You know why, Wilbur Soot.” Schlatt exhaled. “That town is abandoned, anyway. Ghost town. I guess I just… he didn’t deserve to even have a place for his soul to rest after what he did. It felt good, I’m not gonna lie. I felt actually warm for the first time in fucking years in front of that fire.”

“But you were talking about the stuff in there like it was a good memory for you,” Travis pointed out. Schlatt gave him a pained smile.

“And yet I left out all the bad stuff. You saw the golf stuff, right? You asked if he played?”

“Yeah.”

“He didn’t. Case in point. That house was a fucking nightmare to be in, and a dream to burn down.”

“Then why did he have the clubs? I’m confused.”

“Travis, I know you act innocent, but drop the act, I really don’t wanna explain this one.” His hands were shaking. He knew they were. Travis’ eyes widened almost comically in any other scenario when he realized what Schlatt was talking about.

“Oh holy fuck,” Noah said as it began to dawn on the rest of the group.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Wilbur asked. “We could have gotten you out of there!”

“Think about it this way, Wilbur. I was a kid. The only thing I had going for was that I was far too knowing about the world than what I should have been. My father drilled it into my head that even if I did go with you, you guys would get tired of me and just be too polite to say anything. I agreed. I didn’t want to be a burden. Not to mention, if I ran away to live with you in the summer, we were  _ next door neighbors _ . It isn’t like he would have had to look far. I was a kid, I didn’t know where else I could go. And trust me when I speak from experience, being a hybrid in the System isn’t fun. The detention center tried to send me off to various foster parents and group homes, but, I mean, look at me, Wil. I’m a freak. They didn’t wanna associate with some freak of nature, so they sent me back. The center just stopped trying after the first year. They didn’t give a shit about us. So I know, believe me, that if I had run away from dear old dad, I would have ended up stuck in the system again. There was no point,” he waved the topic away. “Any other questions?”

“You mentioned that you tried different things to try and make yourself feel something again. What did you do?”

“Hmm. Around when I was sixteen, I learned that the ‘caretakers’ did not care what we did, so long as we didn’t do it in front of them. So I started drinking, I would do drugs occasionally, they never worked like I wanted them to, so they weren’t worth the backlash I would get if I got caught while high, so I stopped that. I tried to feel pain, that one was perhaps the most effective at ‘feeling’ again, even if it was only to know I was still alive instead of dead in Hell or something. Back then I might have believed I deserved it. But I don’t believe dead people can bleed, so I guess I’m still alive. That was my logic. It’s fucked. I know. I’ve been working on it. But… it’s not easy, which is why it took so long to even say anything about this, and even now I think this was a mistake, but… it’s out there now.” Schlatt hated how shaky his voice sounded. He ran a hand through his hair.

“What was the worst thing? If it isn’t too much to ask.” Carson asked.

“The worst thing? The absolute lack of control over my own life I had. I didn’t get to choose what happened to me, ever, before I came here. I didn’t choose when I ate, when I slept, which was why those two internal schedules were just fucked for me. I think at this point I’m so used to not being in control that as soon as I have even the slightest bit of control over anything in my life, I would probably try and control everything. Runs in the family, I guess. That’s also why I did all those self-destructive habits. Was because it felt… good, almost, knowing I was the only one who could fuck myself up that bad. No one was worse for me than myself.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Hey, would you look at the time,” Schlatt murmured, looking down at his watch. It was almost lunch time. And they were the lunch club. So you know what that meant. It was mandatory.

“I’ll go start on lunch,” Travis offered. Charlie went in to help him. Schlatt excused himself, and disappeared into his room. He sat down on his bed, feeling cold. He always felt cold, but he thought telling everyone would help. It didn’t. If anything, he felt impossibly colder, his heart sinking with the feeling of how him telling everyone this was just gonna make them pity him, how he fucked up their Christmas by telling them this depressing shit. They didn’t deserve that. They deserved happiness. They deserved a happy Christmas, not a depressing one.

The ever-present chill seeped into his skin, attaching itself to his bones and freezing him from the inside out. His chest hurt, and it was hard to breathe. He just told them  _ everything _ . He could have at least sugar-coated some of it, but no, instead he just had to rip off the bandaid covering the ugly wound, letting the polluted blood seep out and stain every pure thing, like his friends’ Christmas. He just had to ruin every good thing that they had, didn’t he?

Then there were arms wrapping around him, and he almost stopped breathing. He’d locked the door, right? Apparently not, because the arms didn’t go away, but were instead joined by another pair, rubbing circles into his back. His hearing faded in, that’s funny. He hadn’t noticed it had gone out. His friends sounded fuzzy, but it was somehow comforting to hear their almost disembodied voices.

“-an you hear us, Schlatt? You need to breathe,” Noah’s low voice came through his ears. He took a shaky breath as his body shook with the cold in his bones.

“W-what?” he asked, dumbly. He hadn’t heard the first part.

“Can you hear us?” Noah repeated. Schlatt nodded slightly. “You need to breathe. In, out. Can you do that?” Schlatt followed the instructions, his head clearing a bit now that he was getting oxygen to his brain again.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. Another wave of cold went through him, and he shivered.

“What are you sorry about?” Travis asked on his other side. He felt dizzy.

“I ruined your Christmas. Made it depressing. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. We’re all glad you trusted us enough to tell us. There’s nothing to apologise for.”

“I have shit timing. Coulda chose literally any other time, but no, I chose fucking Christmas. Everyone is supposed to be happy on Christmas, but I let my fucking sad Christmas curse spread to you guys. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He was shaking from the cold. His face felt wet. He wanted to vomit.

“It’s okay, Schlatt. It’s oka-”

“Fuck off, no it’s not,” he hissed into his knees, balling up in his friends’ holds.

  
  
  


Travis and Noah came to tell Schlatt that lunch was ready, only to walk into the ram’s room to see him shivering, tears rolling down his face. They rushed to his side, wrapping him in a tight hug as they tried to reach through to him.

“Schlatt! Schlatt, can you hear us?” Noah asked gently. Schlatt’s breath hitched, then stopped altogether. “Schlatt, can you hear us? You need to breathe.” They gently shook his shoulder, and he sucked in a shuddering breath.

“W-what?” he asked. Travis and Noah frowned at each other at how broken Schlatt sounded. They weren’t used to helping him with things like this, but after telling them literally everything that he had been piling up after twelve years… they honestly should have seen it coming. He had been just barely keeping it together at some points in his tragic tale, they really should have expected it. 

“Can you hear us?” Noah repeated. Schlatt nodded, barely. “You need to breathe, okay? In, out.” Noah had a hand on Schlatt’s back, demonstrating it for him. Schlatt obeyed, regulating his breathing. The ram murmured out an apology. Noah looked up to see the rest of the lunch club standing in the doorway. Schlatt shivered.

“What are you sorry about?” Travis asked. Schlatt began to ramble about how he’d fucked up their happy Christmas with his depressing-ass story, and when Noah tried to reassure him that it was okay, he was okay, Schlatt cut him off.

“Fuck off, not it’s not.” The ram basically shut down on them, curling up and making himself as small as possible. Noah looked up at Travis, then over at the lunch club. Travis wrapped his arms around the hybrid, and Schlatt flinched, but did not try to pull away. Noah hugged him, too, and noted how cold Schlatt felt. 

“Do you think it ever will be?” Travis asked him. Schlatt froze, looking up at him. 

“I…”

“Do you hope it will?”

“Yes,” Schlatt said, in the smallest of voices.

“Then it will. And we’ll help you get to where it is.” Travis looked up at their friends in the doorway, waving them in. They all joined the hug, and Schlatt gave the slightest of shaky laughs. “We all will. We promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are nearing the end.
> 
> only a few chapters left.
> 
> i hope you all enjoy.


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